Road Map

On Viewing My Hand Through a Jeweler's Loupe

Not my fortune, but a road map,
these twisted lines like broken trails,
like rutted roads and pavement cracks,
and super-highways, with detours
and bridges out where rivers roared--
these are my past ways etched in my hand;
and jagged lightning-streaks also,
dense clouds and many-pointed stars
that hid or lit my stumbling gait.
The road ahead's not shown, unless
that great rift 'round the mount of the moon
may or may not signify
the end of all roads. If it may,
God grant not tomorrow or today.

by Joanne Cage, March 6, 2012

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This is the poem I wrote at Joan and Beverly's Private Eye presentation on March 6. I read it tonight at the AC poetry meeting.