Poems by Tom Pow

THE VILLAGE & THE ROAD (2)

In the village, they think of those
who have taken to the road 
				On the road 
they think of the next village

		❇

There are those on the road who never think
of the village
	There are those in the village
who have made their lives an open road

		❇

When the road turns to water,
	you must grow fins

		❇

There are countless dead villages
	but no dead roads
	(Discuss)

		❇


You don't gather flowers 
	on the open road
	for the open road

		❇

	     You gather stories on the open road
for such times 
	as you have need of a bouquet
or to tell to yourself when darkness falls
and the faces 
	of all the flowers turn black

		❇

Each night, its kindness 
	made the village glow
Wolves patrolled its roads,
	letting no one 
	either in or out

		❇

If I were to meet my dead father
I would choose to do so in spring
not within the confines of the village,
but casually on the open road
preferably in the early evening


THE VILLAGE & THE ROAD (3)
I live in one village
	but I dream of another
I walk down the road
	the sun hot on my back
the books, an unmapped 
	road in my satchel

		❇

She knew the roads
	between villages
the paths through the forest
and a few more that once
	skirted the fields
She lifted her head
	to the blue steppe of the sky -
to the birds, above, 
	busy with nesting

		❇

There were three roads 
	out of the village -
two led into the world; 
	the other to the sky
Now each of these roads 
	has been taken,
the village spins 
	uselessly in the wind

		 ✻
Sunlight through leaves,
	stippling bands 
across a road
	just before it curves
It's possible to love
	when love
is a fixed point,
	going nowhere
		✻

Between the village and the road -
a moon of golden broth
shining in the darkness,
a pinch of earth for remembrance