Highway 4

Driving down a secluded road off Highway 4
Listening to Kerouac preach across airwaves that were birthed
Before I was a twinkle in my mother’s eye
Not Woody Guthrie, not Woody Allen
Steven Allen playing late-night, last-call, dim-lit piano
…in the foreground…

…I am alone…
Kicking up rocks and dust, clouding up the rear view
Dry. Quiet. Attractive. Desolate.
The ground calls to me
Inviting in its un-invitingness…I drive on.
One hill, then the next
Up and down across, a Brown. Dead. Thirsty. Land.
Acres of cold-shouldered heat, harsh stillness, and the occasional mob of cows.

To be.
How easy it is, not to be.
In parched lands
Panting for a drink.
No rain…
No interruptions…
Feeling the need to take up arms against the sea of troubles…from the process of death.
Process of Debt.
How it needs the wet.
Cold. Green.
Drowning in drought.
Cozy in our air-conditioned lives
The radio loud
Filled with a proud
Sense of control.
What happens when the gas runs out?

We know how to rule the world
Control the elements.
Build a tower
Babel.
Babel how we’ve mastered the planet
Nature, no longer a mystery.
Divert the cruel heat
Open the valve…
Let the oppressive pressure escape into the pipe of our own perspective
Let it burst through a crack in our system
Let it rain down on far off places
On others we don’t know
We don’t care.

No longer in touch with the fallow soil
We pass over it with the wheels of “progress” and technology
We don’t need it. 
Ignore it, throw it out.
Convert it into a post card or calendar
A place we’ll never visit
A landscape we’ve controlled
A scene to despise
While we swipe away flies
When camping.

But what happens when the gas runs out?

I’m too comfortable.