Country Drive

between the house and the casino
there's a long stretch of 56,
all pastures, fields, and old barns,
here and there some homes,
seemingly half-abandoned in the bush.
I always wondered who lived there,
so far from anything.
it seemed so wonderful,
so easy to be forgotten.
i would glance through their dusty windows
as we went by, seeing nothing
but reflections and glares;
just imagining rooms full of
motheaten furniture, old drapes
fluttering in a phantom breeze,
beds, unused for who knows how long,
covered in threadbare sheets,
antiques, old leather-bound books
brimming with some beautiful lost language;
fancy handcrafted things
from some bygone time, all ornate
and drenched in the austere light
of a perpetual evening.

the road began to rise
and as we crested the hill
we emerged into an explosion of sunlight.
just then dad let the windows down
a bellowing of warm spring air
filled the car.
beside the empty road was an old chapel
hidden at the end of a narrow dirt path
crouching in a field of wildflowers.
"hey dad," i spoke up,
"wasn't that place on tv once?"
he glanced over as we passed.
"yeah, i think so.
"someone famous got married there,
"or something."
"you remember who it was?" i asked.
he shook his head,
"who knows?"

somewhere on that road, or in the fields,
was a metaphor for the distance between us.
i remember having some thought
to this end. then for a time,
i wondered if that's what poetry was.
i wondered if we could drive
on the sunrays up into the light,
and instead of immolating
we would somehow end up
somewhere beautiful
full of light and truth.
there was a place where everything made sense.
and though the road stayed flat,
somewhere in the rushing wind
in the warmth that kissed my sun-dappled arm
as it lay out the window,
i felt a promise.