Night Travel

I am faint accompaniment,

Weak signal on a Midwest highway

Where headlights push ahead,

The last farm well behind,

Darkness in the rear view
Waiting for the next city's glow.

We speak on traveling topics:

Satellite radio and CNN,

The luck of winning generals,

How they always have luck:

An opportune storm,

The nation scrambling for cover,

Holding to what is known;

Employment on the rise,

This bit of good news an aftertaste
Lingering on for Tuesday's vote.

Then further back to our Founding,

When the Fathers separated State and Soul,

Civility and divinity distinguished:

Let the governed be governed,

And the damned be damned,

How Christ rendered to Caesar what was his.

We have shifted to Troy and the stories of Homer,
Your voice flickering as the candle burns low--

I try for your meaning, with every third word,

Say good night as the signal dies—

You’re an hour out of Chicago now,

Feeling awake and will make it okay.
You'll listen to music or more of the news--

And I to sleep, remembering Monticello,

The great public man with his private room—

Wishing history could let him be held in the dark,

That she could have heard his voice when he was away—

Passing the time with traveling topics,

That he was safe, and glad she had stayed.

 

                                                                                                11/10/2012