An Old-Country Drive

On a cloudy gray Late fall day, I spontaneously decide To take an old-country drive... Trees without leaves Line the roadside, Dark and shadowy Like rigid statues that see nothing nearby. Paintless wood frame houses archaic stand Scattered here to there, Relics of a long past day Lost to something, somewhere. Like abandoned old friends of former lives Along the way they lie, Quietly calling out To each passer-by. Bach, through the radio Gives the surreal scene deep feeling, As I drive into this past world With its hinted vision of life and being. Life as old as humanity itself Seen along this meloncholic view, Like long memories of deeply missed old-folks Recalled by so very few. Who shall remember them all? The homes. The animals. The people and the barns, The work and the play Of these glorious forgotten family farms. Perhaps, it's all still there! Somewhere-everywhere... Within the course trees, under the silent stones, Behind the decaying boards Of the leaning abandoned homes. Or barely out of reach Just beyond the recollections of another time, Those of the heart And those of the mind. The crooked road is As the houses near it, quite old, Time like a seductive snake slithers on- It could be now - or very long ago. (as through this country-side I wander, I'm ever increasingly inclined to wonder :) Why none live here anymore? Where have they all went? Was the lure of city money too strong? Is all they wanted -and made- already spent? Do they ever late at night awake Wish they'd stayed on the grandparents farm, Would their own children be any wiser and safer Out here, farther from hostilities charm? There is no way such answers to know With absolutely no doubt, For who can say how anything, any different Could have turned out? Pondering such I drive on More melancholy than ever before, Longing so, to stop and look Behind the old cracked doors. It's then I come upon An old weathered and worn country church, Empty except for the blackbirds Using the bent cross as a perfect perch. A stasis of time These feathered parishioners seem to be, I look at them resolute As they distrustfully eye me. I realize I am the foreigner Who doesn't belong, They'll still be here, their home Far after my kind has passed on. Perhaps it was such as them Who drove the old pilgrims out, And now the translation of their squawk Is a defiant victory shout. For they and their kind are still here And shall always be, Long after the humans are gone And have only left behind run down memories. As the turning road winds its way Into a crowded burg, I reenter time Far from the old world I'd just observed. I stop for coffee and gas On my return home, Pondering why it is amongst all these hurried people I often feel so very alone. As I pull away from the station I spy a single blackbird flying out of town, I smile, for I know To where he is surely bound. Considering if with him I went Perhaps the answers to all these questions could be heard, If only I could speak and understand The lofty language of the spirited blackbird. These are the thoughts Of an old-country drive, Way out, where memories and blackbirds Thankfully, are still very much alive!