Pursuit
Dec 11 2009


This road seduces you.
Its vistas, beckoning,
its generous curves
luring you further on.
Its softly sloping shoulders
draped in pale snow.
Its slender straightaways
posing
in your headlights’ focused gaze.

It flows like water
indirect, uncharted;
adhering
to the natural contours of land,
seeking-out the path
of least resistance.

And down this grade
a reducing radius curve,
that has claimed so many others
who came before.
Turning harder, as it falls away,
the grip loosening, lost
slipping-off
into virgin forest,
an unmarked graveyard
of cars.

The treachery
of heart-thumping speed.
The temptation
of switch-backs and S-turns that weave
through still black forest.
The lure of the unknown,
over one more crest
around the next corner.
And lulled
by compliant motion,
just on the edge of control.

Until this steep descent
this tightening curve
brushed you off the road
with awful unsuspecting suddenness.
Your journey’s end
never reached;
punished, for your love
of speed.