Rest Area

Lying on the couch

awake since three

in the nursing home

with my dad

and all the other

saints of survival

I watch his skeletal 

frame disappearing 

into the pitch

dark bedroom.

Each shuffle step 

a psalm of frailty.

Eighty-nine year old

bones still moving.

Still holding him up 

in this weighted world.

On the drive home

I feel myself fading.

When I realize

that I can’t remember

the last few minutes

I pull off.

In the rest area

I sleep in the front seat

with the windows down.

The sun and wind flow in

along with the smell

of warm sweet grass.

When I wake 

I am lost in the world

for a wonderful moment.

I climb out of the car 

and slowly walk the perimeter

of the picnic area.

There are no people.

Just a lone semi

parked by the edge

of a corn field.

A driver named Winkle

may have been sleeping 

in its cab for fifty years.

I find a curved hiking path 

mowed into the waist high 

“restored prairie”.

It’s surrounded by wildflowers

and tall, brown grasses.

Fifty yards out

there is a sculpture.

A boat with no skin,

only broken ribs.

A plaque explains that it is

symbolic of the Viking explorers.

It has been surrounded 

with a fence so 

no one will touch it

or get too close.

I watch the fall bloom

asters

hyssop

golden rod and more

rocking back and forth

on the moist wind

coming up from the south.

Monarchs go tumbling by

diving again and again

into the wind

fighting their way

across North America

on paper wings.

Off in the distance

the windmill giants are

waving their arms at something

beyond the horizon.

The earth is tilting.

I think of my father.

No longer able to kneel and pray.

He lies on his back in bed

and prays for the world.

He sleeps and prays.

He has fought 

the wolves of loneliness.

He was wounded but now 

they lie quietly by his side.

He lies quietly by their side.

When I am with him

(and even when I am not) 

I feel his grace.

It gives welcome weight

to the ballast that’s needed

in this storm of days.

Back in the wild field

an old fence post holds

a twisted strand of wire.

It sings so softly with the wind

that it can hardly be heard.

It sounds like the ghost 

of a drowned woman 

calling from far 

beneath the water.

I am in love 

with these quiet things

that have nothing 

to do with survival.

I stand in the field 

listening to this sad music

and watch as a long 

spine of clouds

slowly bends itself

over the ancient world.

.