At Balaban, in the Carpathians

does it waste and wear?
the mountain road
it just slowly changes

carts of hay used to be the only ones to shape
this road, over remnants of Roman via strata
where the old layers of stone
built by that world’s toughest soldiers
had not been torn by rough Carpathian seasons
in almost two thousand years

until a while ago it was only carts of hay and lumber
that used to make the mountain road smooth

now it is also tires of four-wheel drive cars
you can see their imprints

timeless wooden fences reel out into the distance
starting from somewhere
in ourselves

and then back into our flesh
they cast their soft shadows

in the long beats
of the summer twilight