The Land of the Brave

today,
you’re on your own
stay where you are
and don’t move
you won’t stop me

from writing a poem…

I’ll travel
today
to a picnic table
in a scenic overlook
by the Interstate
where I can look down
on
the traffic pushing
west toward
Ohio
and Indiana

and Chicago
and snaking east
toward New York

and Boston
and Philly
and I can watch the
Kenworths rumble
into the
last rays of the sun
and the Peterbilts
tumble into the

dark

and I watch
the headlamps
of a hundred cars
an hour
pan the twilight
all of them on

their way

to somwhere

and

before I leave

I watch
a solitary
Winnebago Brave
limp along
in the slow lane
like a wounded
water bug

heading west

crawling toward

the Continental Divide
two and a half days distant
(at fifty eight miles per hour)

…then

I watch
the sun sink
over the Delaware River
and I smoke an
afternoon pipe
and drink coffee

and I paint the words

rushing up

from late day

onto the back of

a past due

water bill