The Road

The road is narrow, bordered with barley
The cars are fast, flashing headlights
No patience for tiddlers searching for history
The tyres are thin
The track is stony
The route is predestined (Oh, rich despair)
Oncoming traffic in middle of road
A score of car slaughtered grouse
Along the motorways’ heathery shoulder
Hills emptied of houses, furrows of old fields,
Flowery invaders crowd the highlands
Food for dinosaurs, legacy of German botanists
But no nineteenth century tour, this
modern quest is low on petrol
And at the farmstand in Fife
I scare an old man in a Vauxhall
Driving the wrong side
His eyes tell the story, brought together on 
Our doubly predestined trajectory over all those miles of wandering
Hurtling mad through roundabouts of industrial estates
Dancing contrarywise with lorries
The rope dance of single track through faery woods
Hurtling down concrete terror chute
Stop for Urqhhart’s shoving Germans 
Tesco tiger roll Nessie sandwich
Our hosts are appalled at the distances we relate
In our dusty land across the water
Where road is narrow, bordered with wheatfields
Where we drive seven hundred miles in a day
Always looking for something new
Eyes scanning the horizon for the pillar of fire and smoke
The new job, new car, a new house, new shoes,  the next big thing
Land of Opportunity, Land of Promise
Only a railroad ticket away, sagebrush streaming past the window,
or three month’s walk, or we can get there Wednesday
If we push it and the fuel pump holds.
What will you find there?
Old orchards full of dying trees
An old house with broken windows
The dry well, tattered posters from country fairs that will never come again
Vague memories of the world that was
Fear of the wind that is coming
Comfort in love, and friendship in despite.