A Country Road

Sometimes at night when I can’t sleep,
I close my eyes and envision every step
along a road I’ve walked year after year,
past cutbanks, scarlet gilia and sun flowers,

the forked scrub oak where a workman sat,
catching, as he said, the last rays of the sun
before going home for the day.
I know the road so well but around each bend

a surprise — the errant human, a burst of white-
tailed deer up a hillside, the offended stare
of cattle nudged off the road by my presence,
or the ambush of my heart’s leap — desire fired

by sunlight sparking a spray of rabbit brush,
by the faint scent of sage after rain.

This article appears in March 20, 2026.