September Journey

That first day we spent voyaging
a race through Illinois to Iowa
we stopped upon a bluff so high above
and saw the river for the first time in our lives
shining slow and strong below our picnic
and down we drove through dusk and night
past old steamboats and riverfronts
deer fleeing our approach
sleeping towns and villages sweeping by
barely seen

The second day we swept across Missouri
wet fields flying by through rain
in trains and convoys of cars and trucks
eating sandwiches for speed, cans of warm soda crisp
with bubbles
and when night fell we reached our quiet motel
a bright oasis of bed and food and lines of resting trucks
and fuel pumps
an island floodlit in the growing night

We spent our third day climbing sunny woodlands
up steep slopes of lonely hills laid down by fleeing ice
a thousand centuries ago and on their summits
open to a breathless endless sky we gazed across
a patchwork quilt of golden corn and soya bean
hammered sunlight spreading outward 
to horizon far below
and wondered why we'd never come this way before

that evening we ate inside a tiny piece of Mexico
at the center of a dusty midwest city
from bowls of heated lava rock all brimming
with peppers beef and pork and shrimp and spices
warm tortillas and spanish rice
washed down by crisp cold beer
ambrosia of Aztec gods
to end the long long day

our forth day out we bought a blanket woven on a reservation
blue and black and orange and red
and wound our way along a smaller river
winding clear and swift through windswept lands
of farm and forest and high plains
until we found a little town amid tall stands
of slowly turning windfarm turbines
where a round and jovial white-haired man
carved kaleidoscopes and oil wands in a little workshop
like some fairy cavern filled with wonders and good humor
and on the street outside a kind stranger gave us ripe tomatoes
from her garden
red as rubies sweet as candy
so we thanked The Tomato Lady
and that night we swam with shrieking little girls
celebrating a birthday in our motel's pool

The last day we left at dawn to travel
across an ancient crater smashed into the earth
seventy thousand millenia before
and in the midst of lonliness we stopped
to snap quick pictures of the blue and yellow hexes
painted on the sides of barns to keep away all evil
and where a peeling wooden sign said turn
we did
and spent our final afternoon
picnicking on prarie and
picking ancient shells
strange corals
and tiny sponges
from a fossil river estuary
laid down 300 million years ago

our last night we spent flying home across the dark
through wind and growing cold
our children all asleep in
quiet dreams of Iowa September
your hand in mine
we stopped to stretch in some small lay-by
and discovered all the
secret signs
conductors of the Underground Railway
once used to message fleeing slaves
and when we finally reached our home
we cried because we wished it could go on
for five days more,
or the rest of our lives

that was our vacation
how was yours?