Travel Writing

artwork: ralph murre

Travel Writing

by Ralph Murre

Let’s not think of the car with no brakes at all.

Or the Studebaker the color of the dawning

of a very bad day, followed across Utah

by the blue cloud of its oil habit.

Let’s not think of its demise

in the cold of Colorado winter.

Let’s not think of the crashes in the old red Saab.

And not about the silvery Saab’s breakdowns

in Missouri or any of those in Wisconsin.

Not about pick-up trucks in ditches.

The Fourth-of-July Dakota incident.

Let’s not think of the green-and-white Ford

in a California junkyard, parts of its engine

missing.

A motorcycle lying in the gravel of Ontario.

My Rozinante loaded on a truck

in the Michigan morning.  Without ceremony.

We could also not think of the Illinois Tri-State

transmission trouble.  The fast lane.

And, by all means, let’s try not to think of hitting

anything

at seventy-five in the froggy-green Saturn

under the Hunter’s Moon of the big western sky.

Let’s not think of the mustard-colored Datsun.

Or vehicles built in England.

Let’s not think of Florida.

Or Boston.

Oh, Jesus, let’s not think of driving in Boston.

~ first published in Verse Wisconsin

Note:  As I posted this poem a few days ago, it felt appropriate to treat the City of Baked Beans and Banned Books with a bit of levity.  Today, in the wake of the tragic explosions there, I can only attempt to express my sympathy for the victims, for the city, and for an increasingly terrorized world.        ~ R.M.   4/15/13