Road trip through the Carolinas

Heading off for a couple of days;
to some business in North Carolina.
I knew this journey would be
less hazardous than the expeditions
I had been on lately. Those where
seductions of the mind clamor,
luring me from my path;
pulling me closer to the unknown.
You only have to talk to one really
insane person to fathom the peril
in that deep and lonely place.

Scanning the scenery,
savoring the visual ironies in
this disheveled paradise.
Spring in the Carolinas.
Lines on the highway converge on
an abandoned roadhouse - inscribed
Welcome to Club Loco.
Surrounded by slovenly vines,
rusted sign extolling Busch Bavarian,
flanked by elephant-sized rolls of hay.

Past railroad tracks
running breathlessly beside my car,
a garden of cinderblock sculptures,
whitewashed, abstract, and incomprehensible;
delicately outlined by yellow flag irises.
An appliance graveyard gives mute
testimony to obsolescence.

Baccer-chewin’ g’dole boyz in their pick up trucks
keep pace. Sanctuaries of the spirit proclaim
every mile or so as to the day’s sermon.
The highway stretches out its asphalt tongue,
lapping at my tires. Gateway cows languish in the fields.
Gaudy ladies in red ruffles leap out of tall grasses.
But I’m not surprised.

Looking at the beauty of the day
I can’t help but grasp the decomposition.
Few things are timeless.
Honeysuckles burden a fence
sweetly reminding me of the nectar
on my tongue when I was a child.

The boundary between inner
and outer scenery begins to blur.
Reflections fracture and I perceive
that when he reached into my heart,
meaning to or not, a chain of events
was unleashed. The hounds were ready
and bounded away, dragging me
through hollow and swamp and
across fields of red clay.
Now look at me!
What I was before,
I am no more.

So who is this woman who
finds herself at the dawn,
recognizing a world
yet to be discovered?
Ask me how I’ve been.
I’ll say - I don’t know -
I’m only an echo of the universe.

I know the manic phase.
Have embraced it often enough.
But this is different,
like the hum of an engine,
revving and idling under its own power.
No Hi-test needed.
This isn’t the bipolar roller coaster.
The ascent has leveled;
the plunge nowhere in sight.

On past Columbia, around Charlotte,
getting closer to my destination;
I see in the distance, rising gently out of the foothills,
the misty indication of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Their sculptural curves press upward,
accepting the light caress of the horizon.
Expanding across my field of vision,
I regret my path must veer aside.
But it’s clear to me now
that what is unattainable
is by choice alone.


© 2000 Melissa Songer