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The road looks the same
no matter where you are going.
Some roads take on a magic
from the hum of the wheels
they hold.
Route 66 was my father's road
and his father's road.
Model A with the dust bowl
in the rear view mirror
and California in the headlights.
From being men
to being Oakies.
The vulgarities of newcomers.
A drowsy distant hope.
Plowing and sowing the
stretch of pavement.
A gateway to work and food.
Following the hungry signs.
Route 66 was their plowshare.
They dug into the rank soil.
Held the miles in rusted fingers.
Cracked open its hull using the seeds
for guidance. Maps folded like wings.
A banquet of motion. Summoning us
now with its broken fragments.
Let us piece the road together.
This is the way they went
and we shall follow them
as we are able.
©2001, Gary Mex Glazner
Gary Mex Glazner founded Poetry Slams in San Francisco, spent most of 1998 travelling around the world both gathering & giving out poetry in places like China, won the individual championship at the first annual International Poetry Olympics in Stockholm, settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico & became our New Mexico/Southwest Museletter correspondent on his return. You can read his story, “The Mystic Barber of Selçuk” at Salon.com. His recent feature articles here at About Poetry include “Archipoetry 101,” about the building of Albuquerque's Poets' Plaza, and “Poetry and Art in Santa Fe,” a review of two shows that combined poetry & visual art.
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