Different Slants

Robert M. Katzman © Halloween, 2015

Saturday afternoon

Late autumn

Unfamiliar country road

I keep losing

Rock n’ Roll on my radio

Hunt and peck

Hunt and peck

And I miss my damn exit

Cursing the wasted time

I turn east on:

What?

I look for a sign

“Seven Mile Road”

Stretching into the horizon

No stoplights in sight

I zoom ahead

Then I see it–

A clear horizon

Harvested fields

A perimeter of trees

Framing the emptiness

V’s of birds flying south

Fall past its “glory”

I don’t see that

I slow down

Pull over on the dirt

Engulfed in too much

Sober beauty for me

To go any farther

Radio silent

I take it in

I try to take it in

Entranced

As only a city boy could be

Dusty dull grey road

A concrete ocean

Rising and falling

My old car a rusty shipwreck

If I will let it be

And I do

Cresting on a swell

I take in a dying Fall

Black boney fingers

Half empty of leaves

Stretching up to heaven

Supplicating trees

Beseeching to survive

Naked into winter

Abandoned nests

Nestled in nooks

Half light imprinting

Defenseless branches

Across empty fields

How to describe the colors

What I saw that day on

Seven-Mile Road

I am only a person and

Words are so limited

If I type

“Red, White and Blue”

Just flat words on a page

But–write:

“Burned and Bullet-riddled

and God damn it!

Still standing

American Flag”

Strong men can be moved

To tears

Words matter

These are the colors I saw in a

Rural paintbox:

Feathered wheat, tea-stained paper

Murmuring pallid dignity of

An ancient brittle Hebrew scroll

Yellows as vibrant and glowing

As a bubbling egg yoke

Muffled and mottled

Ranges of rust

Fading against the others

Browns as rich and welcoming as

Deep dark chocolate

Purple oak leaves

Veins as thick as

The back of a hand

Of a Georgia field-worker

Reds

How to explain the reds:

Barely tipped green leaves

As subtle a crimson as a

Maiden’s blush

Burnt orange/dirty yellow

So many of them

Distinct and vibrant as flame

Screaming bloody red

Flowing and pulsing

From a bleeding

Wounded soldier

Crying:

Look at me!

Look at me!

While I still breathe

Reader,

Close your eyes and imagine

The range of gasping beauty

Compelling me to

Foolishly try to

Make any of you see

What I saw

Like offering each of you

Invisible Flowers

Massed carpets of leaves

Numberless in anonymity

Brown and crinkly

Curling into veined tubes

Wisconsin cannoli

Swirling in whirlpools

Then collapsing

Dark skin disintegrating

Becoming earth

Distant horizon

A thin blue line

Fading light

Blending

Peeling red barns

Black magic marker trees

Jagged stalk-less fields

Breathtaking

Seven-Mile Road

Just before the end

I stare into the silence

Grey concrete waves

Sailing me home

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