how two people became a family

Photo credit: Brian Gahan


HIGHWAY ELEVEN

I say
it looks like a big silver salmon.
You are driving
so it takes you longer to make out which cloud I mean
I grow anxious
thinking you will miss the shape.

As we head north
Ontario flashes by in hues:
pre-historic brown of Canadian buffalo
blazing-afternoon-red on a lonely barn
its planks smelling like a sheet of wind,
a mouthful of torn grass and a lifetime of rain.

The blue sky so bright
I wonder if it’s fake.
I focus on solid tree lines,
on watery mirages of highway
and glassy ponds that stretch forward for miles.

No radio just the car humming.

We barely talk
as we inhale
pine
corn
field of blueberries
a choir of midsummer green
our urban eyes grow soft.

A lazy wind slowly surrounds us,
its arms hang like diluted honey,
trees reach in through the windows
a lullaby of rustling leaves grabbing us.

On trips like these
I know I will grow old with you
because you
participate in this stillness.