A Wooden Cross

A wooden cross sits in a dell.

I see it there between the trees;

Though, barely, it blends in so well.

I am not sure why I noticed,

Maybe I heard its silent pleas,

In my own path I was focused.

Obscured through green mosses dripping

From limbs and into stagnant pool

Crucifixion vision gripping

The sounds of voice come to my ears

Words, strange, unknown I feel the fool

In my mind, they bring forth dark fears

The path before me turns abrupt

I dare not go on, but look back,

The way is gone now, I am stuck.

So stepping forward cautiously

And clinging tightly to the track

To the cross not auspiciously

Sun is setting what is the time?

I went walking after breakfast

Must have been a quarter to nine.

But care not now for other thought

What is ahead, explore I must

Intended destination lost

Sacred religious artifact

Reaches to me through the willows

No longer able to turn back

But as I round a large cypress

Shock as one before the gallows

Gone the cross and I in distress

For where it went? I do not know.

Now I am left all alone

And I don't know which way to go

This thing at first I thought was good

Has not in fact to me been shown

To be a solemn cross of wood

Intrigued by mystery at first

Would better that I'd stayed at home?

No, says the poet of this verse.