The Crossroads

“The Crossroads”

If you could know me for the first time anew,
Is all of this something that you would do?
Here at the crossroads between what is right
And what is mine to seek (that we reunite)—
Between what is wrong and what’s for the best.
I don’t know if it’s you who put me to this test.

Life in the sun of this desert—is what I long for.
But for a drink of water, I can stand here no more.
Where are you? The wasteland is vast.
You are here right now. But you’re also the past.
Such a lovely face, I remember intimately
What that face once meant to me.

It’s such a strange place that we wander by,
For it is not the same desert that we occupy.
There is a veil between your thunder and mine.
Your stars are glittering, and my own never shine.
What is beyond the crossroads that I cannot see?
I do not want to go there if you’re not there with me.

Between what is right and what I pursue—
One leads to torment, but which one to you?
And standing here only aches my thirst
To meet you again, to meet you for the first
Time out here in this wasteland of ours
With the bones of its roses and dying flowers.

Life of that sun, circling the starry skies,
Night kissing day in the depths of your eyes.
There is a wall between us, built of our sins…
And out on the horizon, new life begins.
The roses are rising through the departed
Standing between the free and the broken-hearted

Between what I want, and what I must sacrifice,
Between what is real and what could be paradise.
I am standing here, where many have stood before
Both behind and in front what is no more.
And I weep to watch the wilting of the future.
Where to my soul, I swore that you were.

Let me kiss the feet that walk over my grave.
Let me rekindle the sins you forgave.
My peace depends upon a flame undying
But while I accept the past, I am denying
The future of which you play no part,
Save as all that I hold deep in my heart.

© 2022 Marten Hoyle