Lonesome highway blues,

itchy eyes — aching head,

steel guitar honky-tonk AM,

after an all night run.

 

Interstate 80 west, 

open full moon road,

the creative life blood soother of my soul.

 

She was sitting on a bench 

at the last rest stop before Wyoming emptiness 

in her paisley gypsy hippie dress, 

blond dreadlocks hanging free to a waist slender and taut,

ger eyes betraying longing sadness only the poet could suffer.

 

‘A ride Mister?’ she asked without spoken words.

 

Her backpack and soul fell into my rickety van

urgently asleep on a mattress from a late night dumpster

in my last night of confinement before the reaper came again.

 

On Medicine Bow Peak I dropped a sacred crystal

into the empty cairn — an offering to mountain gods.

 

She smiled approval when she kissed me peace.

 

An eagle circled above.

Prayer flags fluttered in silent air.