The Three Roads

A description of three roads that might also represent the three stages in the human life. Dreaming infancy, love in adulthood, possible abandonment and poverty in the old age.

The Three Roads

The mountain road

It climbs into green plateaus

Between gravels and leaves,

Cleaving lawns of tall grass

And sandstone walls.

Furrowed by the water

That melts in a thousand rivulets.

Finally, it quiets

Amid the pinnacles

Of Quaternary rock.

Downstream escorted

By ancillary cypresses

That support its burden

And make it safe to pass

On the cliff.

Not satisfied, 

It is adorned with a silvery

And voluptuous stream.

Fairy, it conceals modest beauties

Between low ferns

In the unharmed wood.

The country road

Tall poplars, thorny bushes

And the strambotti of the peasant in love.

They engage her with the ox

Which slowly drag the plough.

Lying on its opal sides

For the dust of the pavement,

With basket on her head and rosy cheeks

The pleased peasant dreams of the beloved.

The city street

Flat and black,

Agonizing between rigid edges.

The rats make it a joke.

Pitch and papers spread it of fetid ointments.

The foot also subjects it

And does not hear the harrowing screams.

The end is decreed

Without excuses and repentance.