Across the Great Divide

Roar of the Union Pacific freight out the motel window—sitting just below 7,000 feet in Rawlins, WY, beyond the rangeland where pronghorns graze on the thin white grass emerging thru snow—12 hours & 735 miles on the road—in the morning, the flash of a Great Horned Owl erupting from a pasture & for a shocking moment swooping thru the high beams—the salmon flesh sunrise thru cross-hatched locust branches along the Snake River—wind turbines & the tableland in Elmore County, ID—a wrong turn toward Pocatello—a UP freight skating along the rangeland past grazing black angus cattle—a diner in Snowville, UT & a retired railroad man talking heavy equipment, all sorts—another UP freight howling along a snowy hillside along a river in Morgan County, UT—a Subaru Outback jostled amidst a fleet of semis surging over the Great Divide, & now the floor shaking as the freight rolls into the mountains past the black angus cattle grazing next to the natural gas pumpjacks & the boarded up diners—I’m tired & thinking about the long lonesome highway—meditating at various moments today what each of my friends might be doing at a given moment because everyone is always here & all moments of the past are skating along beside the blacktop.

* * *

Pic shows a snow-covered mesa just west of the Continental Divide; I shrank it a bit because the Comfort Inn's wireless is a bit shaky!

Please stop by The Days of Wine & Roses for a poem titled “Poem.”