Westward:  I-90

March 2001
We are driving West and time,
this forged reality, pushes us on, as always.
The sun rising directly behind us and setting directly ahead,
I whisper to myself True West!  O Pioneers
I understand your hunger!
We drive without stopping, drive
where the buffalo and black braids roamed.
How many buffalo?  Oh, they forested the plains,
so many you could never cut enough down.
Wads of hair left, tongues taken and it was easy.
Now, all that is left is dead.  There are no tall grasses,
just dead deer with their tongues hanging out of their sober heads,
squashed birds, even an owl a pillow of feathers,
one feather hovering above the dead bird, as the last link to flight and breath.
Even cows lie dead in the median.
And the red clay mountains bleed through the shedding snow.
I had this image that one day this man next to me would be gone,
they would all be gone, and I would find myself here again,
thousands of miles away from home, maybe taller, my hair longer,
and a small blonde daughter clutching my hand as we walk,
walk back in time, when tufts of thick soothing brown hair
cling to bare branches, blowing West.