stripped

today I took a drive, past the traffic, past the congestion, past the urban-ness, to the country. there were stretchs of road before - miles ahead I could see a lone car. and the sun shone bright through my windshield. and the wind blew cobwebs away that I let collect this morning.

I took my camera though nothing jumped at me. everywhere had no treaspassing signs and barbed wire. keep away. keep out of here. nothing wanted to let me in. but it couldn't keep me from looking. haybales haphazardly lined the ruts in the muddy winding road. old men burned leaves in front of their trailers. trains slowed to a crawl. and still I drove on.

the jeep didn't speed. it went exactly right. the heater warmed my cold feet and my cold heart. I went as far as a cavern and then I turned around to come home. everything is brown and the sky is blue, blue, blue. the fields blurred back into traffic and the traffic blurred into buildings and the buildings blurred to the city.

the sky turned peach and orange and bled through the bare branches of the pecan tree outside my window. dinner is cooking and like the hydrangea...I'm stripped of all that burdened me this morning.