The Joshua Tree

I wasn’t sure if I had walked out
of a reverie

Paul Simon’s National guitar was riffing off the radio
as Kerouac whispers to me

words bummed in my head

The long, long road dropped into the Death Valley

California Route 190, Mojave Desert
I wasn’t sure if it was Hemingway who said this
but it was the journey that matters,
so we pass by Badwater, and lose GPS. The best laid plans
of mice and men, Steinbeck.
This was a good time to put on the CD we’ve come to find. I want to
run, I want to hide.

Not all those who wander are lost, Tolkien.
And men like me have lost, and wondered. Why.
I wasn’t sure if redemption lay in the

drought of nothingness
but I seek far to fill the void of the hole you left behind.
The emptiness here, between Sin City and Tinseltown

A man will come a thousand miles for things he’s

left at home. See the stone set in your eyes. See the thorn twist in your side. 

Surrounded by lone sounds of bristling winds,
shrubs, sand, Joshua trees.
I can get to things so far, but to you.
so we get there

and we stand still,
“have you found what you’re looking for?”

I wasn’t sure.

I have climbed the highest mountain. I have run through the fields.