The drive home to SW Georgia gets longer and longer, no matter much Sugarland I sing along with on the cd player or how many goosebumps I cultivate while listening to Roderigo's Concierto de Aranjuez on the fm station. (Or Rusalka's Hymn to the Moon, after which I pledge undying devotion to Antonin Dvorak) Thus, this poem, which seems especially apropos, considering I had to head for the flatlands on Monday before the snowstorm hit.
Thinking Myself Home
I have to look up and over the trees
all the way to the mountains I see in the distance,
then hang a left soon as I get there,
thinking my way down the Blue Ridge
and into the piedmont just south
of Atlanta. From there it's a straight
shoot to home,
if I still want to go, which I do
because this is the best way,
by stealth, no one knows I am coming,
no cake to be baked,
and my mother not worrying most of her day
by the telephone, clearly imagining
fifty car pileups,
the ambulance wailing, the whole bloody
nine miles of interstate closed
for the body count.
No idle comments about my new haircut,
my extra pounds. I could be dust
on the air or a bright stab of light passing through.
I don't have to stay long.
I can leave when I want to, without feeling guilty
when I see my father's eyes squinching
back tears as I drive away.
Hello and goodbye. That's it.
And I'm back
in my bedroom that faces south into the side
of these trees, with the radio on
warning Traveler's Advisory. Wrecking-ball hailstones.
King Kong tornado. Megaton Blizzard.
A forecast so unimaginably bad, only a fool
would drive home in this kind of weather.
