The Lost Road

So they came, searching for the lost road
that meandered, like a river, across the landscape
they imagined for it. Sometimes it sank,
also like a river, out of all sight
beneath the mountains, other times it ran
bright beneath the sun across the plain
so they were not sure that it was not
a river, except that they followed it, trod
the substance of it, or so they supposed
who knew no other way to go forward
as they thought they must, rather than fall
by the wayside out of the story that contained
their lives.

But if any did, what tales

were there for them to tell of byways, tracks
through uncertain lands, paths that turned
back on themselves finding no way forward?
There are many tales, but yet no story to tell
of those who dwell in such places, outcasts
from the lost road who had found themselves
without a story and with no journey but that
bending back on a path reflecting memories
of the lost road out onto a new landscape
shaping itself around it.