I want to take a road trip
stop along the way and explore an old adobe house
with crumbling, eroding walls
And after maybe 50 years of vacancy
Hollyhocks still bloom near what was
once the front door.
Or maybe stop at a sunlit meadow,
much like one I saw 40 years ago
on the way back from Colorado
I wanted to stop then,
it was so beautiful
But Arizona beckoned me home
And, being in a hurry, I didn’t stop.
Or, upon seeing a boulder outcropping
climb up onto the smoothest one
lie down and let the warmth of the rock
ease my aching back,
eyes shielded from the sun.
Then stop at a roadside stand for
some black cherry juice,
Or maybe stop along the way
at a country store
equipped with an old-fashioned fountain counter
and splurge on a milkshake
poured from a stainless cup into a tall,
tapered crystal fountain glass.
Or stop at a motel with vines growing on its walls
the proprietors a friendly old couple
who treat the place like a Bed and Breakfast
by offering a lending library and homemade snacks
Then, stop at a front yard cottage garden
beckoning beyond a white picket fence,
all layered and rocky and terraced
and full of color and scent,
beautiful and compelling in its wildness
Visit a friend from my twenties, back
when we were young and gorgeous
and didn’t know it then, but know it now
Oh, what we would have done
differently had we known.
We joke about it but we both know
we were what we were and
would not have done it differently.
And then, move on to a beach at Carmel-By-The-Sea
soaking up the sun without worrying
about cancer and wrinkles and such
Stay until sunset, then move on down the road
toward the full moon in the eastern sky.
