Personal Eclipse

I remember the dry grass of Nebraska

Grey to distant blue

I stopped on hills like slumping shoulders

Car cooling, I took off my shoes

I drove out west with my sister

She talks more than I do

When she fell silent, still I’d miss her

The sound of the wind coming through

I remember the smoky cups of coffee

At the Continental Divide

Mesas rose up there beside me

I felt like I had arrived

I walked on the streets of California

To the wail of car alarms

Men would shout out to me passing

A stranger with crossed arms

I remember the subtlety of canyons

Black by the roadside

A cut in the rocks as I was passing

Just a glimpse as you go by

If there’s something you always are choosing

You may not recognize

If there’s something you always are losing

Something disguised

Lately I find myself lonely

I wouldn’t have called it that before

I always took it as a comfort

What all the distance was for

If you can’t leave clean as a statement

So true you almost wince

If you can’t leave, you get yourself taken

Like a personal eclipse