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Poetry

(rd king dot net)
poetry and digital art

American Summer

Poems written while traveling.

Coffee Shop on the Business Route in an Arid Town 


The open road will remind us of many things
some of which are inessential, or unkind toward

the planned itinerary.  Still, they take their time
and their place:  consider the young couple behind us,

unmarried, with a small child, getting drunk
at 10:30 am across from the fairgrounds

where the carnival rides are unfolding; or rather,
the distant sheep, the sagebrush, the hay

baled in a still-green field across this brown valley
—the stalwart waters and regrettable commerce

of machines, plants and mills all seeming to happen
by the lone emigrant grave in a lessened way.

We struggle with what we allow to bother us
and what does not.  We tip the waitress and move on.




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