—although we cannot tell it—we slide off
our main road, avoid byways and narrow
routes, hack through deep brush and trees, suffer coughs
and gags through pest-gushed air, constant harrows
feasting our swelling, silent terror. Why
this insane forging forward, love, within
this blackened, mapless swampland where our cries
fade in dark like lies of thieves craving sin’s
false honors? Tell me, what is faith to you?
Is it our near-blind foraging here touched
by mere glints of sun, legs dragging through sloughs
offering no clues of clearings? We’re crutched
only by some slight hope, aren’t we? Pray paths
lie somewhere? Plead they bring mercy not wrath?
Roger Armbrust
July 11, 2010
