Kelly is known to my friend Radika Schwartz, who let me know of her plight, please see her free...
To Kelly, टू केल्ली (from Debs en-route to Berkeley)
She was in Lowe's today in Iowa City
returning a carpet she decided she didn't need
good job...she'd spent more than she had
she told the salesman that she wanted
to get onto Highway I-80 soon
He asked her where she was going
and she told him Berkeley
she's tired she said, she stayed up too late getting her ipod set up
and cleaning up her computer
and connecting with her son.
So today, together, they, the salesman and she made a plan
they figured out, after he called his brother in Omaha
that since there's a game there tomorrow
that getting a room off of the Highway will be hard
so he steers her to Gretna, Nebraska.
She drives west
the sun following her as she goes
she lifts her sunglasses as often as she can
the naked eye cannot take in all that light
all that bright, all those colors.
She looks to the left of her
and then to the right
listening to the Beatles
talking on her cell phone
of the transcendence
of the bliss, of the girl in prison in Mumbai
who lives a life of wakefulness
regardless of the outcome of the trial
she will write to her tonight.
For now all she can do
is drive, see the black Iowa soil
silver in the sunlight,
like tinfoil wrapping the earth
the yellow straw of the cut corn
like the yellow hair of Iowa girls
the green of the winter crops just in
like the green pastures of Harvard University that Dylan sang about.
She drives past signs like:
Atlantic/Audubon
where the little lake beside the sign looks just like
an Audubon calendar
shimmering like the Atlantic ocean
in the early afternoon light.
She drives past the tiered landscape
like Chinese rice paddies
past the English pastoral views
like those of her childhood
past the red peeling barns
like Ginger's garage
past the cattle and pigs
she's on her way through the mid-west.
She drives off the beaten track to Elk Horn
to see the Dutch Windmill
because there is a Windmill on Wimbledon Common
they all went there for tea
it was all theirs, all the villagers
when she grew up in London.
Now this landscape is all hers
and theirs
like a John Preston painting
like the tree on fire
that she couldn't stop the car to take
a picture/photo of all those reds
even though she's driving the speed limit
The fire reds, the yellows,
the greens, the browns
and all the hues in between
of the Maple trees lining the Highway
from Iowa to Nebraska
She tried to take a photo of a tree
and then tired another one, when she stopped later
but there just wasn't anything like that tree
that looked like it was on fire, leaves
rustling in the Iowa fall wind
she knows it's too hard to recapture
the divine eye, once you've passed by it
but she won't stop trying।
copyright November 2nd 2007
1 comment:
touching letter from the prisoner.
i liked your poem more though. amazing writing quality.
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