Dark Roads

Promise shinning from Young faces,

forward, Looking toward,

The dawn, backs turned on,

Roads traversed by,

Marchers come before.

Dark Roads, painful steps,

Lead to the place,

To see this Light,

We traveled for.

Roads past Stonewall,

Cross’t Pettus Bridge,

Waylaid by Warsaw walls,

Many walls, Berlin, Gaza,

Arizona, West-bank.

Past Love Canal,

Through industrial,

Wastelands, Texas City,

Bhopal, Deep Horizons,

Prudhoe Bay.

Dark Roads, Bloodied by,

Bloody feet, smeared by,

Martyrs smudged from,

Stumbles.

Stumbles, it is hard,

To place sure foot,

In Dark places,

Stumbles,Falls,

No one unscathed.

Dark Roads paved,

With stones of Ignorance,

Intolerance, Inequity,

Alienation, Discrimination,

Entitlement, class and race.

Turn not Youth,

Lest you be tempted,

To retrace steps,

Already gained,

At such a price!

Yet Know that,

Each step was made,

For the love of you,

You, the promise,That none,

May have to retrace,

Dark Roads.

©2016 Carl B. Erickson