Road Closed

was emphatic,
but the rusty sign
hung on an open gate,
allowing him to kid himself
and drive on through –
up the narrow sandy track
in an erratic

sequence
of hairpin bends
towards the summit,
and as he continued,
with ever less option
to reverse, he began to forget
the warning, his lapsed

judgement eclipsed
by glimpses of magnificence
beyond – hills, folding
to a pale blue
infinity –
until the sudden, huge stone
fallen into the road.

He felt the absurdity
as he tried first to move it,
then – back in the car, holding
his nerve – to gauge the space
between rock
and scarp,
all to within an inch

of his life.
And for what? –
the view from the top?
His sense of privilege
was equally a trespass
on the sublime;
He longed to remain

in the melancholy
of his private wilderness
with time
and empty sky his friends,
rather than once again
face the crumbling precipice
of his own folly.

Paul Munden