AMHÁIN AMHÁIN DON BHÓTHAR (Gaelic, "one more time for the road")

My philosophy professor

said, “The air in ancient Greece

was so clean and clear

that people could see tiny details

of distant mountains, and

this clarity of vision

translated to clarity of thought.

Thus were born the philosophies

that have made us who we are

across all this great span of time.”

When I walked outside

this morning to look around at

the Llano Estacado, the air,

swept clean by days of strong

winds from the arctic north

revealed a further ridgeline

than I have seen before. Trees

and towers poked into a sky

so far away across the clear

expanse that the nameless thing

inside my bones came out and

breathed great oceans of air

it seemed for the first time,

threw out it’s arms and expanded

everywhere I could see.

The rolling plains arched her back,

to an obliging sky who lay down

between the lifted thighs of brown

hills all the way to the horizon.

And the wind sighed.

On the highway below, trucks

growl and cars whisk by in their

artificial existence made of mindless

metal and speed, a corruption unaware

it is riding at the bottom of what was

once a great sea. A cold trickle of awe

leaks across my anger and I do not know

what to do with this possessive absurdity,

out here where even my ancient eyes

can see the end of time, the end of me.

But there she is!

La Belle Dame Sans Merci! She

dances on light feet, her wild eye

hunts me down, pins me to the ground

like she knows exactly what I need

from her one more time.

I won’t be fooled again, I welcome

the chance to make sweet moan

in the meadows by the lake and

burn the graceful sedge to the ground.

I’ll laugh this time in the face of a pain

I’ve known too long, while we make

sweet love, kiss French style,

long and deep before we reel away,

breathless,

one last time.

Copyright

Vol Lindsey

11/13/2019