As any journey begins
you take a first step
and ask for directions
“Can you tell me how to get to …”
(push out the worn refrains
of Sesame Street)
“… Bonavista?”
jot the words into memory
and promptly
forget what comes after
left ….
stand, ponder, look around
(avoid all eye contact)
“Just admiring the clouds”
… umm …
Ok, umm … where are we?
“Do you smell poutine?”
Yeah — “Left”
umm …
was it the road in the bend
or bend at the dead end?
Disbelief —
“Why can’t they put up a sign?”
(throw in some cursing —
spice is always good)
I hate this
damp bone clenching
grey sky
“We’re screwed”
as you just guess
Right
and the asphalt ends
mud and dust
and gravel becomes
washboard
and a minefield of foxholes
that tear you a new
foxhole
with each coil cracking hit
and you regret
past decisions
“I shouldn’t have stopped
to get gas first –”
because you could
save
2 cents a litre
“Please, please”
I can’t go back
certain defeat
please please
the whining wind
my kingdom for a road
no passing cars
“10 more km?”
oh my god —
where are we?
I can hear banjo music —
I swear.
Why didn’t you get a map
at the gas station?
So straight we go
in silence
as the radio turns
to static
“A sign”
oh yes — a sign!
oh no — a sign …
you have to be kidding
and we laugh
our knuckles turn back
to pink
swallowing
the last of the wet
dust
here we are
nowhere
where we belong
where
we want
to be
“Look –”
over the bend
the frozen aquamarine
Iceberg —
dead ahead
“That wasn’t so bad —
was it?”
my chest still vibrating
I don’t know —
do you?
The way back?
“Let’s get
directions ….”
∞
Submitted as part of “National/Global Poetry Writing Month” (#NaPoWriMo #GloPoWriMo).
Today’s prompt: Day Thirty: “Today’s prompt challenges you to write a poem in the form of a series of directions describing how a person should get to a particular place. It could be a real place, like your local park, or an imaginary or unreal place, like “the bottom of your heart,” or “where missing socks go.” Fill your poem with sensory details, and make them as wild or intimate as you like.”
30 Poems in 30 Days
All text and photography © Dale Schierbeck
…. more of my original Poetry on EatsWritesShoots here.
Hahaha! Poor buggers.
Though, this reminds me of my late husband. He loathed getting lost. Would break out into a sweat and curse and stress and fret while I sat there laughing at him, saying: Just relax, Babe, keep driving and we’ll figure it out. He would stop twenty-five times and ask directions, if he had to (not your classic man, too macho to do so 😉 )