West Texas Road Trip
Alone with your thoughts…and the javelinas
A road trip where the land falls away
opens me up every time.
At a gas station stop for a snack and a coke,
I stretch like a cat.
There will be no more stops for one hundred miles.
It is one hundred degrees.
No matter.
These stingy trees, this parsimonious green will show me the way.
This is where the Yucca with its swordlike leaves and white flowers
gave food, medicine, and soap to native peoples.
This is where the javelina barrels through a barbed wire fence to escape my prying eyes,
and a roadrunner ducks down the dusty shoulder into the brush.
The radio becomes an unreliable companion.
Hank Williams gets in half a verse.
Tejano takes the wheel for part of a mile.
No matter.
It is the quiet I want most anyway.
Nothing outside or inside to snag my thoughts,
so that they drift like the clouds inching across the bluest sky.
We are all taking our own sweet time.
© 2021 Betsy Denson. All rights reserved
This poem was inspired by POMprompt #24 — Take Me on a Journey. Thank you The POM.
