Gary,

Great read and great journey, but for the British reader,
what are 'jackalopes' ?

Roger.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Blankenship" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, December 16, 2002 4:39 PM
Subject: New: Wide Highways, Thin Roads


Wide Highways, Thin Roads

She drove her eighteen-wheeler
across the Great Basin,
"Earl" and "Bertha" so loud jackalopes
frightened for miles around.
The load - straight-to-breakage toys,
pirated music and videos
destined for the discount bin,
paperbacks due to be remanded
before she returns to Frisco's docks.

coast to coast
she pushed more than most
sometimes lost

A wrong turn on KC's beltway,
past oak lined streets,
manicured lawns,
and three story antebellum columns.
A green rubber ball bounces into the avenue.

Night fog so thick on the Bay bridge,
stoplights morphed into bat's eyes,
a twenty-three car pile-up left behind.

An April white-out at south of Clarkesburg,
ice and wind from Stonecoal Lake
rising to grab the wheels and turn the windshield
into a polar ice cap, sans polar bears.

Gully washer on the Platte,
drive-by in Susanville,
speed trap where once brothers died,
each for the vision of freedom.

harbor bound
she sped the ground
sometimes found

Carols on the radio as she ran top speed
to drop her load before first light on Christmas day,
a cup of coffee a stranger
bought when she staggered into the truck stop
after a two tire blow-out,
the smile of a family of migrants
when she let them hitch in a record Kansas sun,
the desert after a late spring rain.

A clapboard bar outside Fort Collins -
greasy fries and congealed omelet,
age and too many wide highways
left their tracks across her face
until he smiled from his wore-out boots
to sweat-stained Stetson,
signs of too many hard rodeo landings
and sleepless nights in pickup beds across his.

travelin' East or West
she was among the best
until she found rest

along side a cabin near Homer.
Her last trip up the thin road to Alaska
before her old bones betrayed her,
Hank loud enough to scare
the grizzlies for miles round,
a feather bed and scruffy boots to assure
it didn't get too fluffy,
paperbacks with their front cover.

a gear shift her headstone


Dec Byron Sacre at: http://gardawg.homestead.com/gardawg.html... Writer's
Hood at http://www.writershood.com/... Poets for Peace.... ¡Poemas sí, balas
no!