Have You Seen Her?

order in Colorado:

“what time you got?”

“what time you want?”

“okay, you order first…”

“two of the same…”

“the same what…?”

after that, this crossing’s gonna be easy…

with Kansas on the east, now

unbelievably ironed out prairies

flatten landscape sheet boards

rising and stretching out across America’s rhythmic universe

good thing, that Kansas,

that buffer,

that wide open song

drivin in any key

so smoothly,

this glass north lake immense land stretch

at nighttime

hundreds of miles escape the road

flowing out from all directions,

floodlights and streetlight scratching the dim horizon,

confirming this is civilization

confirming I am not alone

confirming others gotta be out here too

somehow this white wagon negotiates,

a solitary moving metal phantom cutting through the night,

blended and touched with rainbows of eternity

and then in the next heartbeat

the land of the big red hills appears,

beginning another movement

that could not even be conceived from the other side of this motherland,

a wonder damming up the breath

a colossal wonder beaming out an unspoiled nearness

Burlington, Colorado

7/30/73