Poetry | A Story of Traveling | Mary Ann Schaefer

A Story of Traveling listen
for Holly Lewis, my intrepid friend
1
not so long ago
I lie sleepless 
in my mother's
house.  I left
while it was
still dark still
hushed, and I drove
away, crossing
the clicketyclack train 
trestle over the muddy 
Missouri into pre-dawn.

my feet were speeding, my hands were steering, leaving
all the rest of me to lean out the window
and fly.

and there longing hovered, about to rise
with the intensity of opening 
all
at
once

but instead daybreak oozed
out along the horizon, it
percolated up and smeared
the empty black, smudging
the rustling shadows, leaking
into a yawning watercolor
until without noticing
my eyes burned
from the glare.

it’s impossible to read
the signs that time
of day, even to see
the highway’s direction
heading into the burning
fire of day.  

the road is just 
there, underneath you,
inside you, taking 
you along.

it’s just the beginning.

2
wherever I went,
does it matter?
I found myself re-
turning on the same
rolling highway, 
the passing lane
empty now of 20,
30, 40, 50, the endless
miles and golden
fields of fireflies 
waving, and I
was no different,
still flying out
the wide-open
windows.

maybe I was singing
with the whirling wheels 
as the car surged
toward sunset, maybe
I was really
racing, my heart
pounding in sudden
certainty that catching up
to the fading
light could be homecoming,
tearing along the edges and
launching into space 
where suns never
set.

but the panting darkness
fell just the same as I was  
crossing the bridge again, 
the exit signs all well-lit and
the murky river underneath
flowing silently along.

my mother was
sleeping; she 
did not hear me
sitting outside
watching 
moths flutter
around 
the porch light.

that light has been
on 
all this 
time, it will be 
on 
after I go again,
hurrying home to leave
it on now 

for you.


it’s always just beginning.