Scotland

Deep soggy grass tinted with violet heather, burgundy stalks of trumpet flowers;
The wind incessant, clouds of all types and shapes and heights,
Sandy beach, rocky beach, shale and slate – cliffs.
The slow pace of everything else, as if resisting the winds drive;
Cattle and sheep, northern apples and blackberries;
Everything grows and moves slowly – like the rocks, ancient, glacier carved,
On which people have tramped long before we built walls – though they too still stand.
The wind blows thoughts, one after another, and then all the way through till none more are left,
It’s sweet like peat, salty like the sea, crisp from the mountains, wet from the rain.
A friendly wave while passing, single lane, a tale or two as answers to a simple query,
A hint, a shake, a friendly notice of the weather, and isn’t it a lovely day?
It’s glorious indeed!
A nice day for a walk, I think it will be rather fine still later.
The city’s grip releases, it can’t hold out against the wind,
A smile comes easy and the rush dispels and you don’t mind letting someone pass,
On the street, or on the road, or on the beach, or in a store,
It doesn’t really matter from where you came, you’re drawn to share a dram or pint,
Perhaps a story from some time long gone - of dreams differed or just now realized.
The doors aren’t locked, at night you wonder freely, it’s a bit too simple to consider the alternative,
Beyond the due considerations of those tied to the land and it’s glories – it’s our field, it’s our bay –
We drink from the same stream, be it as whiskey, beer or tea.

Interstate Nowhere

A lonely road in the hills of Judea


Interstate Nowhere

I ride.
I have ridden.
I ride.
I have seen.
I have seen not.
I have been removed.
I rip through the current, I see nothing. I go somewhere,
I’ve been nowhere.

Completely removed from the living and the breathing I have traversed a significant part of this country. I traveled 1200 miles to New York City, only to have seen the paint, yellow and white; the reflection of my light in the signs, green, blue, brown, red… ensconced in leather, surrounded by metal and concrete, others encased in cheap Japanese plastic.

I rode.

Alongside of them who have no idea of what or who they are, from where they are and where they might be going. I knew where I was going, they knew not that of me.
I passed through Wisconsin and have seen no cheese.
I rode through Illinois and saw only the silhouette of Chicago as the foreground, shadow covered opening act of Lake Michigan’s glimmer that night.

Do people live there?

How hath those towers arisen so high, and by whom?
I passed through Indiana, steel mills all around yet I saw no steel, I saw no glaring furnaces; the sweat drenched faces of men on their eleventh hour were as hidden to me as green lined promenades of the countless universities, the students… the composition of the state was to me an enigma, I believed that there must be some substance to the sate, but it exists in the minds of other men, to me it is just a story, one which I must believe but have no foundation on which to create an opinion, a bias, a love or hatred, Indiana passed me by.

As did Ohio.

As I entered the green, rolling hills of the Pennsylvanian valleys, big dips in the road, big winding road, fresh air, rivers, independence, where it was conceived and brought forth to the nation, the place from where we said: “let us not be ruled by some unseen, unheard force…” and yet I did not see and I did not hear, other than the gentle roar of my machine as it climbed yet another hill, I know not of what that fateful day has brought to the descendants who still live, somewhere here, in Philadelphia perhaps, in Pittsburg, in Erie…
The road gradually turned into New Jersey, I did not notice. It was just as hilly and winding as before, I smelled no difference, I felt no difference, I chanced upon a sign that said “welcome to New Jersey” and so I knew where I was.
Locked into the interstate, locked by semi’s driven by faceless men, surrounded by cars with faceless drivers, some mothers I’m sure with screaming kids in the back, some doctors on the way to an emergency, a lawyer just off from court, some mechanic analyzing what could be wrong with my black steel horse as I roared passed him…or maybe there were no people at all, maybe there were no cars, maybe I just got to New York by way of my imagination, perhaps there is nothing between here and Minneapolis.

How can I know?

The interstate has blocked from me all knowledge of our land, I am no more full of memories and insights, stories and dreams than when I left my house with my mother standing in the door step waving me off.
I traversed one half of my beautiful country, so diverse with…I don’t know what -
I wish I did - the interstate brought me nowhere.