What I found on West County Line Road

So I hustled down Covington Road, 

Right brain still sleepy,

Left brain full of to-do and on-the-agenda,

NPR turned up too loud,

Neal Adams too eager to tell me the new bad news,

Me too weak to say no.

Take a left on County Line and

Not much traffic this morning.

Some mornings this too-skinny, too-rolling, 

Country road is a drag race, quick

And dangerous. I've fantasized

My death here. Probably a head-on.

Whitley to the west and

Allen to the east, when

It's summer and sunny the

Light streams in and out of my car, as I pass 

Additions, the little woods past Aboite Center,

Then a white fence casting long, uneven shadows

I chase before me.

November days, through, start

Late and end early; twilight visits

Morning and night. The stratus clouds

Hang so low, they simply

Morph into the mist that

Ghosts over the fields on the Whitley side,

Fields spare and yellow-brown, newly shorn, 

Somehow almost alive under the slightly shifting,

Strangely clear, silver light that this morning brings;

How far away the sun seems, far as forever--

Still, even as these few miles of County Line Road

Pass by, both counties lighten, west and east.

My little car slows and somehow the radio's off.

No one's around. The light gathers and grows,

And I roll my window down. It's cold.

I watch the field for a moment, breathing slowly,

And with the mist, a small quiet slinks inside,

Here on a hill just past Liberty Mills.

Inexplicable, still -- 

Light and quiet --

That's what I found 

On West County Line Road

One Monday morning

In November.