Headed north on 59
into the pummeling wind
tank full of high octane hope
& setttled down from the adrenaline
of the semi that nearly took me out
60 miles back.

The wheatland & yellow grass prairie
as wide as the cloud swept sky
& wheels humming under me -
cruise pegged at 75
set the perfect stage

I'd played the CD's hot
volume knob notched up & up
Springsteen wailed and Nanci Griffith sang
sweet, thin songs
that laid upon my heart
like snow patches on the soft Wyoming hills

Somewhere 'bout an hour south of that barren, little speedtrap -
that strip mined, company store of a town
I was running headlong toward,
I pulled the wrapper from Rosalie Sorrels' cassette
I fondly slipped it in to play

She sang to me alone, and no one else
a song for David long unheard
holding firm the road, unturning,
I clutched the wheel and felt the stinging
unrelenting grief
- passing by no hitchikers
the cold, dull sky devoid of rain

She sang for him, her son
- my long late friend
- and I sailed past the road markers
barely noting the endless weary coal trains
trudging by

In my mind, I walked again
the road through Gospel Flats
under bright Bolinas stars
Laughing free and rough at 21
into the unbridled night

The coal trains rattled on the tracks
and Rosalie sang her plaintive pain
but still in my mind was the vision
of David and me,
that bar in Petaluma
a girl named Carmalita
the split-rim truck that hauled us
up & down Highway One
 - Ragtime picked on an old guitar,
another girl named "Trouble"

The tracks curved away from Highway 59
& the trains were somewhere else now
out on the golden, swept-grass plains
and Rosalie brought home her pensive song
about the "Hitchhiker in the Rain"

As her last chord rang sweet and sad
from off the shoulder  of the highway rose
an eagle - big as the pain in my gut
& swept across the road ahead
- the synchronous moment
seeming almost unreal

The eagle lifted up to the western hills
over thrusting volcanic cones
as Rosalie launched into a Ferlinghetti poem:
"La Bruja, Flower of the Revolution"
which spoke of birds on the edges of volcanos

I scrawled a note to myself
at 75 mph
on the back of a folded paystub
to write this poem
and not forget
and to send it off to Rosalie
as soon as I could do it justice