Road Trip

Opuntia sp. Flower Buds

Road Trip

I want to take a road trip,
stop along the way and explore an old adobe house
with crumbling, eroding walls.
And after maybe 50 years of vacancy,
Hollyhocks still bloom near what was
once the front door.

Or maybe stop at a sunlit meadow,
much like one I saw 40 years ago
on the way back from Colorado.
I wanted to stop then, it was so beautiful,
But Arizona beckoned me home
And, being in a hurry, I didn’t stop.

Or, upon seeing a boulder outcropping,
climb up onto the smoothest one,
lie down and let the warmth of the rock
ease my aching back, eyes shielded from the sun.

Then stop at a roadside stand for some black cherry juice,
or maybe stop along the way at a country store
equipped with an old-fashioned fountain counter,
and splurge on a milkshake poured from a stainless cup
into a tall, tapered crystal fountain glass.

Or stop at a motel with vines growing on its walls;
the proprietors a friendly old couple
who treat the place like a Bed and Breakfast
by offering a lending library and homemade snacks.

Then, stop at a front yard cottage garden
beckoning beyond a white picket fence,
all layered and rocky and terraced
and full of color and scent,
beautiful and compelling in its wildness.

Visit a friend from my twenties, back
when we were young and gorgeous
and didn’t know it then, but know it now.
Oh, what we would have done
differently had we known. We joke about it,
but we both know we were what we were
and would not have done it differently.

And then, move on to a beach at Carmel-By-The-Sea,
soaking up the sun without worrying
about cancer and wrinkles and such.
Stay until sunset, then move on down the road
toward the full moon in the eastern sky.