Back roads

 

And lo the land is sweet and there is plenty of it

might have been a hymn I hummed as a child

though I was taught no hymns except the automobile,

the curated landscape of wheat and hay, green and gold’s alternate.

 

Hills raise hair on my arms under this dipping cursive two-lane,

where you sleep beside me. Thousands have I driven this lifetime,

drowsy children, drunk friends lulled at last uncomplaining,

and once my parents non-characteristically 

 

to silence. I looked in the rectangle and saw them

asleep, heads touching like parakeets.

It freaked me out. I watch ages pass in the cleft rock

see the shadows atop the great Wallowa’s meaning

 

there is something higher than mountains 

the goat-faced try to scale. Myself, always the chauffeur, heat stoker.

Awake behind what wheel is why I drive, overseer

of my passengers, alone, and the song my difference, my un-taken.