Vacations

When I drove the empty highway
to Monterey, the ash came down like snow
because the forest obeyed the storm
and the storm obeyed a different
god than us. I could see the red glow
of the fires behind distant ridges
but I couldn’t go near the town.

Heading through Missouri, rain fell
for hours and the rivers rose and rose
until all the levees failed. I spent the night
drinking in a bar in Iowa watching news
on the television. My drowned heart
dragged me home where I slept
for three lifetimes like a lotus seed.

Flying to Tucson with a string
of buzzards, the heat plucked us
from the sky like we were hit
with buckshot. The earth was baked hard
like an old Etruscan plate, and nothing
lived in that land but gray dust
blowing among the bones.

In Lansing, the crowds were screaming
about nothing and waving flags around.
They carried their rifles proudly
as if they were men, and their signs
demanded freedom, spitting
through clenched teeth with the
sad venom of the lost.

I crossed the border and drove north
until my eyes were vacant windows.
I stretched a hammock between two pines
and slept under a black sky
so sprent with stars all the songs
ever sung drifted over me and I dreamed
the sweet promise of tomorrow.