what is it about that traveling
long distance not on the highways to get somewhere
but slowly, on back roads/locals only
rambles where the tires always sound
a little rumbly, a little off
the rhythm of even the smallest stones
under the tires
makes a permanent rattle in your
ribcage so that the body becomes the
tympani of transport
the bass line of lostness and wonderlust

like the time I got lost in the Navajo nation
didn’t see a sign of human life for hours
alert to the peril of not finding the way
the bassline got erratic there
made me pay attention big time

or those crazy winding almost single lane roads
on the central coast where the falling down and to
the right on a steep hill is a brake touch away
from eternity
there the blueness taunts
waving enthusiastically to
fall in
the water’s fine

it’s that edge of
the care it takes to stay alert
stay alive, stare at the totality of winging downward
into the brink.
that rattle in the ribcage, the unsteady
beat of wings, or maybe it’s those
soft brushes on the cymbals
swishing those latitudes and that lostness
through the bloodstream
soft shoes scuffing through the heart
as I scuff through sand, through red dirt
through damp duff under the cedars
gathering molecules
memories of place on my soles
just like all the original walkers
whose dust was this?
whose songline?
whose azure sky?