We could walk safely down its center, explorers
claiming land as we traveled its length, greeting others
who may have been strangers for years.
a confetti of bark and weeds
would begin to fur the straight line of roadway
as mosses along the edge of the asphalt extended into ruts,
their soft moundings unchecked by the crush of wheels.
Cars, parked blocks away would grow shaggy
with debris, abandoned like old furniture, engine fumes
replaced by a green cologne of soil and pollen,
of home cooking and laundry snapping in a clean breeze.
If the urgent call of elsewhere ceased, we could relax into the comfortable
dead-end of uncut lawns and flowers nodding on their stems
and sit together at night, surrounded by the small talk of crickets and owls.
You wouldn’t think of leaving if the road closed today.
Carol spent twenty-five years helping run a small farm in the Tualatin Valley of Oregon. She received an MFA in poetry from Pacific University. Her poetry has been published in Windfall Journal, Red Lemon Review, Verseweavers and Cerasus. Her book, Each Leaf Singing, was published by MoonPath Press in 2020.
