The Road

I, too, would ease my old car to a stop
on the side of some country road
and count the stars or admire a sunset
or sit quietly through an afternoon….

I’d open the door and go walking
like James Wright across a meadow,
where I might touch a pony’s ear and
break into blossom; or, like Hayden

Carruth, sustained by the sight
of cows grazing in pastures at night,
I’d stand speechless in the great darkness;
I’d even search on some well-traveled road

like Phil Levine in this week’s New Yorker,
the poet driving his car to an orchard
outside the city where, for five dollars,
he fills a basket with goddamned apples.