Night Drive Home

Night drive home

no cars behind or ahead

the day had been satisfying

victories, compromises, achievements

half hour to home

bubble of warm air and light

moving toward it in my metal bubble

toward my wife and children

watch for patches of ice

casually, not nervously

maintaining velocity and analyzing

Jim Hall's and Paul Desmond's Bewitched

which way should I go

back west past industrialized cities

to spruce-fir forests

then what? the same

need for man-made implements, 

refreshments, even names

they gave the rocks and trees.

Not one thing or thought uniquely mine.

Whether I am a visitor to my life

or the actual owner, inside

the bubble of air, water, blood

that must not now slide off the road

into time.