Worse than (a road)
going nowhere
is (a bridge)
spanning nothing
but shrub skeletons
grass ashes
and broken
beer bottles.
Gumbo clay,
desiccated,
tessellated,
dried mud mosaic
under the
insomniac’s boots.
The badlands
are bad for it,
mad for it,
anything defined
more by its lack
than not:
thirst,
debt,
futility.
Wind.
An excess of
Nothing.
So the insomniac
thought he’d
settle down here.
No better place not
to lay your head
at night, he said.
But the townspeople
(when there was a town)
the dirt farmers
(when there were farms)
the ranchers
the cowboys |
the emigrants
the surveyors
the homesteaders
the claim locators
the tenant farmers
the railroad agents
the small landholders
were having none
of that.
Even the ghost
towns were having
none of that.
Enough of not
having enough,
they said.
Don’t bring
your brand
of it here.
They’d spent
the day putting
down the last
of the animals,
kids hiding
in the root cellar.
They’d summed
up their accounts
and marveled
how many ways
the land could
betray them.
Or the wind.
Or the sky.
They were
looking for
a rainmaker,
a cloud lassoer,
a Midwestern Moses,
to part the dust |
and bring them
water.
We look
to the night sky
for moon rings,
they told him,
not for dawn;
to the horizon
for clouds, not
clarity.
Waiting is all
the same, the
insomniac objected,
not a matter
of object
but of state.
Well then there’s
the difference
between waiting
and wanting,
said the tall one,
tossing another
beer bottle over
the railing. Git
on now, cross
that bridge.
See if you can
come back.
Before I go,
said the insomniac,
tell me,
how can you
sleep?
Tell me,
came the answer,
how can
you go?
|
