Fragments from the Highway ...

Fragments from the Highway …

After successfully writing a blog a week for Miriam Sagan’s great, eclectic, community-spirited blog, “Miriam’s Well” for nearly a year … here I go and start my own blog and after only a few weeks I miss multiple posts!

Ah well … perhaps I will try to “catch up” with some shorter snapshot blogs in the coming weeks. In the meantime, there was a 2 week trip by car from New Mexico to the east coast … and a lot of 12 hour driving days.

So to share something of what I was up to, here are some fragmentary notes from a section of the drive.

Highway 40 …

I.

Third coyote

at the side of the road

in thirty miles.

This last –

head outstretched, nose

to the wind,

neck fur ruffling

as if he is still

running.

II.

Feed lot cows

shoulder to shoulder,

no space

to move,

standing on several feet

of shit.

The smell

thru closed windows

stings my eyes.

Caught in the endless wheel,

I say a prayer

for their smooth black heads,

their fine, white spots.

III.

After yet another

sign quoting the Bible

I say, “That thing I’ve been talking about – the reason the

world looks like it does now:

falling into chaos, hate, senseless

sound-bite nonsense – everyone’s

opinion

fact enough

and turn it around

its just the same …

That world.”

“Yes, this world,” you say.

“The reason – the thing we lack now,

that thing we used to have that went

missing –

could it be, Meaning?”

IV.

Corn fields.

Cotton fields.

Rows of soy.

A field of rusted metal parts.

V.

“But there’s more,” I say.

“Meaning has to be participatory. If its

something just handed

to you, a proscription, a

perspective, a set of rules,

that isn’t enough.”

You quote Joseph Campbell,

“People aren’t looking for meaning,

they’re looking for an experience of life.”

I’ve been searching for meaning

since before

I have memory.

Maybe the search itself

Is the missing

piece.

VI.

Red-winged blackbirds

scatter-shot

from tall grass into

gray sky far windmill horizon.