six a.m.

As a child sitting in the backseat of our 2001 Toyota Corolla
silver like a jester’s face on a timeless screen –
I always looked out the side window.
A grey highway flickered through its frames,
a tuxedoed tramp from a platinum age, traipsing towards dawn
across fields of corn: still sometimes with much to grow,
and sometimes a maze –
Each stalk a blur
Pools of trees, untamed, contained, broke free into forests
lonesome eagles, like smoke, turned with the winds above,
the ground grumbling the sky whispering.
What is the sound of an eagle’s breath?
A Corolla approaching and retreating,
quicksilver.
When it rained I imagined our car parting an eternal waterfall
and longed to stand at a storm’s edge with hands outstretched.
In a land without wind such a magical place exists.
But all lands I know are touched by air.
Upon a silver screen:
A Corolla and a journey among countless.
I fixed my eyes on the fields of corn and the pools of trees,
anticipating not the turn of the road,
but on the next eagle,
flitting above a monolithic sky.