Friday, June 5, 2009

I drive the long road home

I drive the long road home. The linked telephone poles make a fence stretching high above me on the left and the post and wire runs beside me on the right. The toasted fields in furrows chase me on one side and green fallow fields follow on the other. The road ahead is painted with a yellow stripe leading me up and down, straight and logical. It rises before me, crests, and dips. It focuses my journey forward.

I have watched the trees twig and bud and blossom as they fill out in readiness for summer. I have watched the sky evolve from white to grey to black sometimes smothered by clouds filled with rain or snow and later, cross fade into a vast and distant ceiling of blue.

I see cars and trucks, sometimes a runner or a pair of walkers, out-buildings, farms, houses, stores and gas stations—inhabited and abandoned. I try to see, really see, what is going on in the world around me as I fly by. I pay attention. I am an encapsulated voyeur.

You know what? You’re not in it. Anywhere.