By mojave
Date: 13 March 2000

After Last Call, Tucumcari, New Mexico

....who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity....
                                -Allen Ginsberg, "Howl"

Travel over with for the day--
everything
over with for the day--
I walk out of the bar
and look up at the night sky,
the floating
edge of the Milky Way
visible.
A miracle.
I wonder how people live
under a sky like this;
there's no hiding
from those stars--
really windows...
But to what?
No answers here, pardner.
No one gets out alive?
Well,
whoever said that was right,
of course--
but all the more reason
to LIVE now
(which there'll be time for
later).
Tonight sleep will come
easy,
as it should.
No more opportunities
to ask questions
that have no answers.
300 miles today,
300 more tomorrow.
Best not to contemplate
the heart's long journey.
But just before falling asleep,
I will wonder
about the one I've yet 
to meet
and where she is now,
wrestling with visions
and poems not yet dreamed.