Cul-de-sac

 

Yudi Latif

We live in a land  

whose roadmap grows tangled.  

Along the way, signposts are broken,  

lamps flicker with hesitation,  

and people walk on  

while asking themselves:  

is there still a place  

that can be called the future?

On this uncertain route,  

prices and levies soar,  

the economic chasm widens,  

law loses its balance,  

justice fades into shadow.

No wonder the steps  

begin to falter.  

We walk in doubt,  

while the future  

drifts further from sight.

The most haunting moment  

is not when the road ends,  

but when we no longer know  

where to take our steps.

At such a point,  

we gaze at the ground before us  

and begin to understand:  

perhaps the road is not always there  

to be found.  

Sometimes it waits  

to be made.

Like a seed  

that is never given a map  

for where its roots must grow.  

It enters the dark,  

pierces the soil,  

and from there  

discovers the way to light.

Perhaps we are the same.  

We need not always know  

where the journey ends.  

Sometimes it is enough  

to know what can still be built:

to mend what is broken,  

to straighten what leans,  

to plant something  

that one day will shelter  

those not yet born.

It may seem small  

against the vastness of the land.  

Yet a road, too,  

begins only as a line  

upon the earth.

So it is with hope.  

It does not always arrive  

as a light splitting the sky.  

Sometimes it is only a small ember  

kept alive by someone  

so it will not die.

Like one who keeps planting  

though knowing the tree  

may only spread its shade  

after he is gone.

For the future of a nation  

may not be determined  

by how long its road stretches,  

but by whether there are still  

those willing  

to open a path at the dead end.

And if one day  

we truly arrive  

at the road’s end,  

perhaps it is not the end.

It may be that beneath the feet  

that choose to keep walking  

a new road is rising, unnamed.

Later, when our children ask  

why we did not  

give up,

we need not point  

to a perfect land.

Simply show the trace:

that when nearly every door  

was sealed by barriers,  

we still left  

one window  

for the light.