Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PATH, by CLEMENT WOOD


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PATH, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: If I had a path, I'd keep it open
Last Line: Always wider, for people to pass.
Subject(s): Forests; Life; Roads; Wandering & Wanderers; Woods; Paths; Trails


If I had a path, I'd keep it open,
I'd keep it open, for people to pass,
Going to anywhere they wanted,
Over the straggly weeds and grass.

It isn't a path, when no one passes,
No matter how wide or how cleared it is;
It's just a vacancy, good for nothing.
A vacant home is only a house.

For bars and gates and "Warning: Posted!"
Are a sort of poison to neighborly men,
Like trees blown down, when a storm uproots them:
You must clear them away again.

A path is a sort of sign of welcome,
Saying "Use me," with friendly face.
It makes it easier to go
From one place to another place

If there's a way opened before you,
Even a disused woodland track,
It's something to help you to remember,
And you always might want to be coming back.

You like it better, the more it wanders,
Easy-going and indirect.
Round every turn something is waiting,
Usually nicer than you expect.

The thing to do is to make it smoother
For better going, you have to keep
Shifting the stones to make it more level,
Or making steps when it grows too steep.

All these things make a burden lighter
If someone on it must carry a load;
For a path is only a beginning:
If enough folks use it, you have a road.

Salamanders in rainy weather
Crawl out, right there under your feet.
It soon gets walled with Virginia creeper
And virgin's bower and bittersweet.

Pheasants nest at its very borders,
Safe where the briar and fox grape twine.
Deer will use it, in preference
To pushing their way through brush and vine.

I guess the little folk must use it,
Whatever there is that lives in woods,
Bowling the crimson partridge berries,
Playing leapfrog on toadstool hoods.

The path is always waiting for you,
However the grass and the vines may grow,
If you're berrying or after flowers,
Or feel that you've simply got to go

Somewhere out of the indoor tension
Into a world that's cool and green,
Where you can walk the bitter mood off,
And come back taller and serene.

Some paths just roam ahead regardless,
Without a reason, without excuse.
If it has a spring, you'll find it widens
The more the spring is of any use.

It's there in night or any blackness
Just the same as in midday,
Leading you away or leading you homeward --
And it isn't fun to lose your way.

The woods have things that they must be hiding,
Or why would they make the path overgrown
With tangling stems and barring thickets,
To hide the way you have always known?

There's something cheerful in people passing,
Even if all they do is wave,
Or stop and gabble about the weather
And how their neighbors misbehave.

There's things you may be able to tell them,
And you can learn sometimes from them too,
Even if it's only a reminder
Of something you always really knew.

The man that bars a path to people
Bars himself away from them,
Missing something that they could give him,
Like a weed with a broken stem.

It isn't a path, when no one passes,
Barred by some silly selfish ass.
If I had a path, I'd keep it open,
Always wider, for people to pass.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net