There Are Tunnels Up Ahead

There Are Tunnels Up Ahead

There are tunnels up ahead,
carved out of the mountain,
squeezed between the peaks,
excised beyond belief,
miles of wet rock paving from
bottom to top.
There are years of darkness when
the turns up ahead have waited for
the eyes of a hundred passengers to adjust.

Perhaps that is where we lost track
of the progress from home to last.
Maybe we were so constricted we all
came out the other side and accelerated
faster into the light.
Sure, and we had no choice but
to follow the taillights before us.

A few began the journey with good intentions;
others, in a rush to satisfy objections snuck out
of town under cover of darkness.
But they all were funneled toward the gaping hole
black as space. No one escaped.

On the other side, though,
wonder of wonders,
a chosen few swore on their life and the
lives of others
they had never encountered the darkness,
nor could they.
Perhaps their eyes had been closed from birth.
But the earth will tell their story
with verity,
the tunnel makes certain of that.

I know there is an opening at the far end,
I can feel the slow whoosh of wind on my face.
But there is no light yet, nothing to guide me to the end.
Sometimes I just want to pull over and wait for someone
who knows the best way around the mountains in my way.

But once I saw the reflection, a tiny wink on
the graying granite, I prayed I might exit with a new
story
to tell.