The Long Drive

The Long Drive

Flat Midwestern road,
towns sleeping even in the daylight,
farmhouses, though, bustling early,
men in faded blue overalls,
women in old print dresses
on the front steps shouting something,
kids darting back and forth between the two;
white wooden church, linseed mill,
a flock of grackles descending on a crop,
cows, haystacks, fences long and lean
as the train-lines running parallel;
look ahead and I can see as far as the next silo
and the next and the next;
look behind and...
no, there's no looking behind;
radio playing, FM country, AM talk,
singing to myself,
laughing at the sheer humbuggery of the callers;
don't bother the speedometer with a glance,
car's like an airplane,
faster we travel, the more we're standing still;
van ahead of me
pulling off into a side road,
almost got to where he's going...
so it can be done, I tell myself.