The Best Road of All

The Best Road of All

I like a road that leads away to prospects white and fair,
A road that is an ordered road, like a nun's evening prayer;
But best of all I love a road that leads to God knows where.

You come upon it suddenly -- you cannot seek it out;
It's like a secret still unheard and never noised about;
But when you see it, gone at once is every lurking doubt.

It winds beside some rushing stream where aspens lightly quiver;
It follows many a broken field by many a shining river;
It seems to lead you on and on, forever and forever.

You tramp along its dusty way beneath the shadowy trees,
And hear, beside you chattering birds or happy booming bees,
And all around you golden sounds, the green leaves' litanies.

And here's a hedge and there's a cot; and then, strange, sudden turns --
A dip, a rise, a little glimpse where the red sunset burns;
A bit of sky at evening time, the scent of hidden ferns.

A winding road, a loitering road, the finger mark of God,
Traced where the Maker of the world leaned over ways untrod.
See!  Here He smiled His glowing smile, and lo, the golden rod!

I like a road that wanders straight; the kin's highway is fair,
And lovely are the sheltered lanes that take you here and there;
But best of all I love a road that leads to God knows where.

~ Chas. Hanson Towne

From my mother's poetry notebook

How Beautiful The Feet

How Beautiful The Feet
by Genevieve Glen, OSB

Along each dusty road and busy street
the gospel walks on tired and wounded feet
whose tread is steady though the road is long.
The sound of herald footsteps falls as song
on those who labor in the heavy heat
of life grown burdensome, which once was sweet.

A freshness follows when the footsteps come
and play surprising music through the hum
of boredom making noise to hide the sound
of fear that lurks behind the daily round
and whispers that of all life's hours the sum
is empty beating on a hollow drum.

The steps awaken hidden hymns of praise
which murmur, spring-like, at the heart of days
that suddenly remember hopes which grew
in future's endless fields when life was new.
Their seeds in dark earth stir and dare to raise
green shoots that startle jaded, jaundiced gaze.

The footsteps gather crowds that run behind,
astounded at the beauty that they find
in words that sing of other ways than those
that lead the disillusioned to suppose
there is no life beyond the dreadful grind
that starves the soul and stultifies the mind.

But no pied piper, this, with jaunty air
to lure us to the place where dreams despair
before the gates of death that once stood shut.
These footsteps that we follow, bleeding, cut
a passageway that leads us out to where
life's music catches fire -- for God is there.

[Oh, God bless Genevieve Glen!!!  Thank you, GG, for your inspiring and nourishing poetry!!!]