The road full of fallen
branches and stones.
Bare skin of toes
Pierced
by jagged shards
of wood and flint.
Though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
that clawed at my throat,
threw my hair up to the sky,
howled down the canals
of my ears,
I walked on.
Steady purpose burning
between my eyebrows.
And there came a new voice
singing,
breaking through the sharp
edge of night.
It kept me company,
curled itself around
my fears
like a cat
with a warm belly.
The skin
of the soles of my feet
thickening, strengthening.
Footsteps carving a path
through the debris
of fallen cities.
The song, burning
like the stars
through the sheets of cloud,
linking me
to a deeper melody
that murmurs
beneath the vast stretch
of ocean.
roshnii 
This piece was written during my latest writers’ group. It uses extracts from Mary Oliver’s poem.
See the original poem here.
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Roshnii — your poem is beautiful! I love it and of course, I love that you used my photo to illustrate it. Mary Oliver probably my favorite poet ever. I like your work too. Thank you for making the photo a link to my flickr photo — you did it perfectly. I really appreciate that.
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Babe,
It’s so inspiring and wonderful to see your life shining as strongly as ever. GORGEOUS poem…as are you! How has life been treating you my dear? Ana xo
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Lovely poem Roshnii. It speaks of the challenges of our personal journey along with the determination we all inherently have and the beauty of the prize at our destination. I love it 🙂
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Thanks for your comments.
Although, I feel that I cannot take much credit for the poem as the atmosphere for it was already so vividly created by the original poet.
However, I did enjoy the exercise of taking extracts from an existing work and then flowing from that.
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