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Plain Living (1974)
Just to be where I am,
to become the place:
Joshua Tree shouting hallelujah
or potted cactus on a patio.
Maybe my bones yearn for exposure,
which is their kind of fame,
to arrange their dry thoughts on the sand
somewhere cast of Mojave,
and the water containing itself for my sake
may want to flow again:
gravity calls like an old love song.
Let it go.
I do brood sometimes:
Bear Mountain is always there
at the back of my mind
as it should be.
To the north, highways run straight
though not quite endless,
suited to the needs
of adolescents escaping hometowns
and truckers, wide-eyed on bennies,
snarled in their lives of unpaid child support
and 4 A.M. waitresses
older than all the small talk.
I grew up listening to highways whine at night,
counted the gears shifting instead of sheep.
I wanted out, too.
No more.
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