BIG VACATION

An inspired fog of secondary color  
Settles on the hillside above folded rock  Cascading down canyons 
Toward the sunset,  
Where it could be said that  
What you find there is more essential  
Than the day’s mileage, 
Or the year’s ambitious goals.

A glint somewhere beyond knowing  
Signals the color 
Of a glistening expectation,  
A relief tied down with strained sighs.

In the on-going distances  
Tired committed engines 
And varying horsepower  
Bear the human regime and this inane,  
Though greatly sought after timeout,

But only after hours of searching  
The hidden realm of our senses,  
That first-promised landscape 
Of a lost poem,  
The mistaken picture cow, 
A billboard song and dance.

A home movie of it cannot be shown.  
Any wrong turns 
Would be hooted down,  
Voted unimportant.

Like listening to the drone of the motor,  
Anyone would drift away 
Into his own vacation.  
Shut the heart of the matter in the trunk  
With all the gift shop sentiments.

No, 
The camera needs to pan, 
To rise and fall, 
Spreading out the landscape 
Like an exhausted traveler  
Covered in a sprinkle 
Of autumn-like events.

Whether bare trees 
Or leaf scattered streets,  
The scenery moves 
Inside your soulful ache.

As a test of adventure, 
You shout it skyward.

You inhale 
The final sunset and daybreak,  
Struggle with pointless suitcase latches,  
Deal with what was seen or missed,
No reason for feeling like a bus 
Left you here in the quiet,  
Or took you to some other quandary, 
But because

There was supposed to be a reply, 
Not an echo.  

 

Bright Fall Rides

Bright fall rides

Snake-back shade
Down hill sound
Blue-cast blown
Smoke-dim woods
Flare-shaped limbs

Sky-flung scrawled
Glass brook light
Glazed bent look
Brown wet gleam
Dawn trees frieze

© Jimmy Warner, 2010                        next