The road I am taking
One spring morning, bright and sunny cool with thin clouds,
Is officially an “avenue,” not a “road,”
It runs to the west, but not to the east,
Lined with tall trees but with no sidewalk,
My cane leans on its leafless shoulder,
The stumps cast low shadows,
Each tells a different story:
Some have fallen decrepit in old age,
Some were felled by an unexpected midlife crisis,
Some were cut down strong in their youth,
Some stand next to the lucky survivors,
Some are alone.
My stature and stamina reduced,
I am soft and hard, bent and unbended.
The wind blows west to east across my path,
Straight I travel, no longer on the crooked paths of youth,
Old age, experience, eye surgery: The world looks different now,
Seen as the French say “par une nouvelle optique,”
Age and death both have their beauty,
Some agéd humans this place flee,
Some in a coffin, some in an RV,
Not yet me.
A hawk’s cry, a woodpecker’s staccato,
Soon hummingbirds will hum, robins will rob, owls will hoot, roosting vultures will say
Nothing.
We all share the road I am taking,
Until one by one until each no longer sing-songs or zig-zags, out loud or in silence,
Others will walk this “avenue of life”
Including trees, shrubs, and stumps,
All are familiar friends.

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This post-ekphrastic poem is dedicated to the trees and stumps that line West Conway
Avenue in Las Cruces, New Mexico (there is no East Conway Avenue),
and to my great-great grandfather Robert Ray “Freck” Latta (1836-1918),
my family’s first poet and our own version of Robbie Burns.