The road like molten silver
With a streak of gold
Flows, flows
In endless stream
Through endless green

Trees, shoulder to shoulder, crowd the banks
Of the silver and gold road
Claim all vision
All possibility
On either side

Ahead mountains surge upward
Freeing themselves
From the marshalled green ranks
That cling and climb
In doomed determined effort
To best the summit

Tall sharp shooter spruce
Bayonet the watery sky
Then guard the shores
Of the leaked sky lakes

This land is wider than any poem
These trees are deeper than any picture
This road is longer than any map
These lakes are bluer than any color
This sky is louder than any sound
These mountains, ah, these mountains
Rise higher than any god

Here is infinity
Now is forever
Vast is divine

The days would be as persistent slow as the fields
stretched sonorous
sky to sky
grass and grain
gold and green
dawn to dusk
work to rest
work again

The years would be as steady slow as the growing
plant to seed
tend the growth
sprout to stalk
pray for rain
ripen to harvest
smell the sun
tractor, thresher
reaper, combine
silo, grainery
fallow fields
winter rest
begin again

The life would be as straight slow as the train tracks
made for long loads, steady pulls
rulers laid between field and road
measured progress
from terminal to terminal
division lines across prairies

We are will-o’-wisp
gadflies
picture takers
memory makers
strangers in this long strong land.

“Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust”
We birth,
live and die
within that “to.”

To smell the space perfume
Dripped by stars
Through the firefly night

To stroke the storm
That jerks the chains of leaf and limb
Insistent that trees heel

To finger your lover’s face
Taste the heavy honey
Of bodies shared

To glimpse a child at play
in a world not of any god’s making
creator of a private universe

To wail in silence at a wake
Pound fists sore
On death’s locked door

“Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust”
In that short “to” lives
All the beauty and terror
Of life.

The Rock of Ages
is sometimes
a pebble in my shoe
rubbing my soul raw.

[A work in progress. I like parts of it but not yet the whole of it.]

A willful child, I scorned our Mother
She played Her flute but I danced not
She played Her dirge but I mourned not
Unhappy, I looked for another.

In church I found liturgy and incense
Holy men who always demanded more
Priests who sinfully abused God’s poor
Religious pomp offering only nonsense.

In Christ I found a man of blood and tears
Anointed crucified contorted
Love twisted, discarded, distorted
First on the cross then through two thousand years.

Jesus, divinely human prophet man
Calls me to God, Holy Wisdom Woman.

[Just having a bit of fun here with a writing prompt to write a letter to a fictional character.]

My dear Mrs. Bennett,

It is a truth
though not yet universally acknowledged
that not every young man
whether of good fortune or no
Is necessarily
in want of a wife.

Nor, for that matter,
is every young woman
in want of a husband.

Moreover
To speak of people as property
rightful or otherwise
must now make every person
of any sense and sensibility
cringe.

It is a matter of pride
to eschew such prejudice.

I hope it needs but little persuasion
to help you see the error of your ways.

Though I should not wish to imperil
the humor of your absurdities.

Your faithful friend,
Adrienne

I escape with my life
and sanity, but barely
from the CNN talking heads
too loud, too long
drill through my bedrock skull
melt my permafrost brain
infanticide of all thought.

I seek refuge and repair
among nuts and bolts
down Lowe’s long aisles
but the noise we once called
elevator music
plunges me down
into something like grief
for murdered thought.

I am redeemed, rescued briefly
by an unlikely savior:
a cashier with a lilting Jamaican accent
more music than the alien chords
that invade my mind control
cleave thought from self
more sword than chord.

Right down the road
the library, shiny new
surely offers quiet
thought resurrection.

I sit among others
so many others
in blissful blessed quiet
reading, working, sleeping even
in the quiet cool.

Available comfortable seats are few
but I find one of an empty pair
in front of a large window
no CNN, no shared noise
pretending to be music.

There my mind births thoughts
without contortions or labor pains
with surprising ease
a quiet birth
in a quiet place
Miraculous