It’s
like this sign I saw, driving
across
some dirt country
newly deforested barely on the map
two-lane road: “Don’t
Drive
Into the Smoke.” I slowed,
backed-up, read the sign again.
Not a halo
in the sky,
just the remnants of tiaras
long lost in the toy chest;
I was not necessarily
looking
for the smoke I do not drive
into by order of the sign,
but it seemed
so declarative,
so exact:
there was smoke,
I was driving,
and these two
were
not to mix. For boot,
read trunk. My shoes off
putting some soul in the moment,
and briefly I explored the
roadside
where I’d stopped: lots
of neutrons,
electrons, and protons everywhere
around, unfragmented
for my sake
into shards of asphalt, rubber, plastic,
glass, grit, awaiting my
leaving
so they could again fragment
back into the unseeable, cavorting
themselves, silly with
ice-cream-flavored
rhapsodies and light, relentless airs.
&
I
unattached the sign from its post,
guessing I hope
to be not the cause
of
a catastrophe some point
after I have passed, and placed
it in the boot of
the car.
I
have retraced this action,
determining its worth or simply
relishing its mirth. I am
not sure
that I would hear of a tragedy
involving smoke and driving, especially
on
that road in that part of the backcountry,
but I trust that I will
feel
a stabbing jot of nerve
should the possibly inevitable happen,
that I will
simply acquiesce
to a strategy of blind homage,
assured that
my reasoning is correct.
A conviction, then, that I have saved
fellow travelers from the same fate,
tiaras long lost in the toy chest;
without fail now as I drive,
regardless the where, the why,
the time, the fate, the unseen
halos, the prancing protons,
I while away the tires
searching for the smoke,
the certainty that there is
smoke
designed specifically for me,
that my fait accompli is to
drive into it,
halos, as hard and fast as I can,
without braking
for thought or
projected hindsights.
It
has never once crossed my mind
that the the is unnecessary.
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