Left Behind

August 2 2020

The city was left behind,

its hot pavement

and grid-locked streets

and sadly stunted trees

in dry compacted soil.

Where I am invisible

to the multitudes,

who are too busy to notice

or enraptured by their phones,

and always in a hurry

going somewhere else.

Through holiday traffic

bottle-necked ramps

impassable construction zones,
highways where they keep adding lanes

in a race with cars

that arrive even faster.

Build it, and they will come, Ray Kinsella once wrote

about a field of dreams

amidst the Iowa corn,

never suspecting that road-builders

who dream of blacktop and hot-smelling tar

could read just as well.

Go north, young man

they once exhorted;

yet even old as I am

find I'm still entranced

by escape and reinvention.

Motoring alone

through rocks and trees and a cool breeze

as day recedes and night descends,

a gazillion stars brighten

and a full moon rises.
Impossibly large
on the distant horizon,
its fine-grained surface 
through clear still air.

Where I can stretch

and breathe

and feel the weight of time lift.

Where a ribbon of pavement unscrolls

through the virgin hills before me,

fantastic fireflies dance

their baffling semaphore.

I'm just back from an urgent and unanticipated trip to Toronto, the “big smoke” far to the south of us. My dog was badly injured, and needed emergency veterinary care not available here. 18 straight hours of hard driving each way, stopping only for gas. The city was hot, crowded, and claustrophobic, a perpetual construction zone. I got lost more than once.

Fortunately, the dog was not as badly off as had been feared. So we returned home as soon as possible, and I think this poem captures the relief of the trip. (The multi-lane highway with its stop/go traffic was the 400 between Toronto and Barrie. The beautiful part was 11/17, as it parallels the shore of Lake Superior past Sault Ste Marie.)

There were no fireflies, but I took some poetic licence. Since the cardinal rule of poetry is “show it, don't say it”, what better way to express the lightness of soul and sense of release I felt? The moon was maybe a couple of days from full, which is close enough. And I think the expression was actually “go west” ...but never mind. However, I did motor alone for a good amount of time, despite it being a holiday weekend. Especially in the remotest stretch in the depths of night.

I've avoided talking about the misery (perhaps I will in another poem): the unbearable noise of my little old car; the sore bum and numb foot and bad back; the physical and mental exhaustion; the allergic eyes; the blinding LED lights of oncoming cars; the mountainous ascents; the utter endlessness. But also the beauty. Especially of the north shore of Lake Superior past the town of Marathon, wreathed in fog and a cool liquid light as we emerged just after dawn.