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Getting There

By Carol Newman

Along I-86, tamaracks
kiss the landscape with
smudges of soft brown, sepia
among the blue spruce evergreens and
pristine snow. Hills rim the vista,
carve a scalloped edge
on the horizon.
 
I drive while wavering clouds
bruise the sky, bite
into sunshine, and make me
wish for mud, signs of spring.
In the distance, piles of slag
stain the snow, and a dog,
chained, barks for
some kind of release.
   
Lulled, the sign for 19 surprises me.
I swing sharp off toward Alfred State,
244 and the long ride
through tapped maples
and fields of deer, heads down,
eating corn stubble.
 
There, my friend waits for me,
a quiet street, a new rug from India,
all hot reds, the little animals lined
up on the shelf. We talk
of mothers and friends, mind/body
connections, ruin and pain.
Sometimes we laugh.

 

Carol Newman is a graduate of Pitt-Bradford and St. Bonaventure University who taught writing at Pitt-Bradford for fifteen years. She has published work in Chautauqua, Earth’s Daughters, Ebb, and the online publication Writers Workshop Review. Her poetry has also appeared in the anthologies Written on the Water: Writings about the Allegheny River and Far Out: Poems of the Sixties. 

Filed Under: 2021 Issue, Poetry

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