the road ahead

I stop walking, miles from town. The storm

inside has cleared. Surrounded

by so much quietude and light,

only the wind seems agitated, the way

 

it scours the fields. The road's yellow drag-

line keeps me tied to its black,

opaque channel, its riptide

always forward or back, though no one

 

would stop me from plunging

into all those plowed acres and acres

of upturned chocolate.

I watch Ollie's Allis Chalmers crest the distance,

 

an aging allosaurus dragging down

the hill's far slope.

No matter how far I come,

I seem no closer to the horizon. A flock

 

of morticians caws off to another roadside buffet.

Not a dab of cloud in all

that endless blue. How convexed

this world in your eyes. You gaze at me, as if

 

for some sign, so patient, waiting, as ineffable

as this sky, this air, this road. I don't know,

friend, what drives or holds us

here or what to forget or remember to move on.

 

--Miguel deO

Done