Terry Savoie

Sobering to hear that drum beat once more,
         my heart's restless hankering after
all those brightly lit but meaningless pursuits in life,
         trinkets I'll neither have nor ever be capable of doing,
as with my adolescent dream to swallow all of the North American
         continent in one gulp, doing 80, 90, maybe even an
as yet uncharted 100 mph while heading out to meet
         the horizon,
but I now know the vista at the end
         I so desperately craved has become un-
reachable although my thirst for that wild-eyed
         yet fading fantasy, rampant, still does pull at me hard.

Perhaps I've arrived at that "point in life," that "fork-in-the-road"
         telling me to just wise up & settle down, Zen-like –
if my swollen, arthritic knees are still capable of enduring
         the screaming pain long enough – to rest on my laurels
no matter how rare & hard to find such laurel leaves might be.
         I wonder if I should admit that the day has finally
dawned when I most emphatically must put my foot
         down while, at the same time, attempt to elevate my legs
in order to take my mid-day snooze without worries, just a soothing,
         marsh-mallowy bliss settling quietly over me as I drift off
& nod my thanks, but no thanks to all those impossible
         ambitions, allowing them to drain away while I sway

in my hammock under this afternoon's cloudy, stippled sky,
         waiting for those urgencies, once so demanding, to settle
themselves & stand idly by, no longer hungry to venture
         out or drive madly for that far off, seductive horizon that may lie
dead ahead, that never-never land of my youth when the song
         for all adolescent whining & whimpering was
"California Dreamin'" & Mama Cass could sure as hell belt it out
         as the wind whipped through my straggle of "long, beautiful hair,"
the car radio cranked up full blast, my red MG with its top down,
         no worries, no nothing, no any place to be,
just rolling down the road, quixotic, carefree
         any ol' time I had a full gas tank, got the itch,

& could damn well do whatever it was I desired or felt
         in the mood to do. But that unfurling sunset lying ahead
remains. There's still some fine music to be made, no? At last,
         I am getting the hang of all this living, & it's not too late
in the game yet, is it? I haven't botched up the entire works,
         have I? Perhaps I've just realized I'm going no place
else quickly, & there's no other place to go. The entire
         continent's vanishing point looms far out there,
& the horizon's just about where it's always been
        but, God help me, it'll always be there
just
        beyond my reach.