BOB DAVIS ART

The Ride

I drive into the night-darkened country, laid out in front of me

in red and blue maps, (revealed as just another vision of strangers,

while the feelings of treason are held tight within my body.)

As you watch over each move I make as I trace a route on the map.

I walk along the newly cleaned-up riverfronts, (fronting the dreams

for those on the riverboats making excuses for their gambling.)

I carry my bag slung tight against my body, sideways,

carrying all my writings in one small notebook,

all my music in one small digital recorder, and all those memories

of riverboats passing by beneath the grand expanse of blue sky

with a few clouds scattered for good effect, scenic,

photogenic in the morning light.  And you watch over my every move

as I coast along:

The wind whips over the sailboats

in the marina (halyard jangling against mast)

as they move in tandem with the docks,

pushed up and down by the waves

splashing over the gunwales,

the hard salt spray smacking

into the glass fronted cabins.

And I breathe in the crisp dew-laden air (of whatever state

I find myself in that morning.) The creek running alongside

the campsite is cold to the touch, the cold running from my fingers

up through my arms into my body. I focus on the coffee, percolating

on the fire, long enough to stop my wandering

as I get out the notebook, the camera, the music, everything I record for myself

as I experience everything I see, for myself. While you’re watching over me

each time I note something new in my world:

The roads are wide and flat and the rivers

are narrow and the trails are grown over

with green and the airplanes fly in circles

overhead. The helicopter lands on the glacier,

sliding into a crevasse. The ice moves

each of us in our own time, as our bodies

slowly descend into the blue denseness.

I flee the political landscape of red and blue states. (Each person

is held tight within, opinions to be fathomed, inferences

to be let loose, to be scratched out, sketched over

and the photographs discarded.) And still you watch over me

in the moments when I seem far away. And that’s all I can ask,

because here you are, still, along for the ride.