A rented Plymouth
vessel apt for pilgrimage to bedrock,
the route well charted
no need for the navigator
who crossed with me before.
This time I travel alone
in a laboratory on wheels,
reaching for the tape recorder
solitude's container
on the pilgrimage led by the Oregon hawk.
My thought hovers over the hood like radar,
sensitive as a wound,
a kind of eye above
that places one in traffic.
The highway imparts an apparent unanimity,
a unity like faith leading to Los Angeles,
a gingerly shared elliptical orbit:
one single-occupancy vehicle
one drop in the river road
crossing Battle Creeks and Mill Creeks.
We strain abreast into banked curves,
leaning across the land, across the wind,
with all cargo tilted,
apparatus sprung over the hillside.
The courtesy of Darwin:
by wary and graceful selections
the slow yield to the swift:
slower traffic keep right,
keep right except to pass.
I was right, I am left, love passes,
I travel in the lane.
At Scio I know
I've come halfway
more than halfway
to where I go.