Unsliven Road

“Let poetry rise up from the bus stop.” - Il Purgatorio. Dante

I’m looking for the one who was here,
standing at the dark terminus
where the road ran out.
A nurse. A nurse?
Early mornings, late evenings,
in the leaves, snow, cherry tree blossom,
tarmac and rain.
It was too dark to read, too long to wait,
A book in my pocket by Basho.
A luminous dial on my wrist.
It’s morning, bone weary,
I’m a one man queue.
This is where the months
and years and decades went,
where I left my ashes
among the cherry blossom,
left my ashes
mixed with the yellow leaves,
as I smoked cigarettes.
I wept here once. I sat down and...
I can’t remember.
Unsliven Road...from “unshriven”?
Eternal damnation?
Il Purgatorio: in winter this bleak
inadequate shelter froze me,
but in summer...a song thrush
made all heaven present.
Nothing else mattered.
Here it comes.