In honor of National Poetry Month (April)

In honor of the upcoming National Poetry Month, I've asked my Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ followers to suggest topics on which they'd like to see me write a poem.

I had a couple of requests right away. This is the first one: a response/reaction to Robert Frost's immortal poem "The Road Not Taken." Here is "Tread Anew," my response/reaction to that. (Suggestion by Jessica L.)

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Tread Anew

—Bacil Donovan Warren

Heel-to-toe, I walk alone a path others shun

Miles and miles it takes me astray

And though the night leads back to day

And I meander still under the rising sun

I regret not a single moment of this way.

It passes by a village where they are afraid—

Never step off familiar stair—

And as they breathe their constant air

I prepare to lay myself, bare, in a bed made

Out of the travels and knowledge on a path rare.

Gazing as I do back up at blanketed gems

Of swiftly disappearing stars

Fading with morning’s orange scars

I feel the stare of one complacent, who condemns

My wand’ring, careless gait, never knowing my spars

With every step and each day’s kneeling down to rest

Never once sure about the next

Place where I am led by my treks

Nor do they know the constant, soul-destroying test:

Ever-present, and always on surprise subjects.

For even though this path that others fear to walk

Is strewn with obstacles galore—

Pits, cleverly concealed trap doors—

It is absolutely worth every single mock

And each of the condescending glares from the scores.

I tell them true, as I am only able to,

“I’d walk along this lonely street

Alone and free, on my bare feet

Sooner than with a single cookie-cutter you

Ride on the tired road, with other sheep, and bleat.”