Alleghany

We are weaving through the Alleghany Mountains, the last stop in Breezewood behind us, where the gas attendant who bequeathed a smile as she handed me my change will still be chewing on the fat end of her gas station cigar. We pass a long, deep valley, spotted yellow from the delicate skin of old farms, white chapels without bells, and gray green bales of wet hay that have lasted through many winters and are now scattered along the arteries of the low brown fields.

My mother dips her shoulder like a Las Vegas showgirl as she listens to a new CD and recalls the many times we’ve passed along this road, these winding hills, and what about them have changed, the color of the lane lines, the cement dividers, the cool air of spring. My father, though born so close to these hills, is tired from grading Public Relations projects, and sleeps behind his New York Times, his neck jerking him awake when his red beard brushes against the cold window.

We overtake the slower cars, the ones holding families who have never been through this part of the country, and who enjoy the view even though the sky is overcast and air still winter cold. We push forward with the poise of semi trucks hauling grains and lumber and metal casings crafted carefully in these working class towns, in the factories my Grandfather use to work in as a young man, after the wars. A truck driver with cranberry red nail polish races my mother, not knowing that my mother cannot be beaten, no matter how fast or light the rig is.

We have passed so many springs in a car along these roads, through Ohio and Pennsylvania, on our way to Maryland and the capital of this grainy busy nation. We have sped rapidly past the Three Rivers and Pittsburgh, gaining momentum over Licking Creek and Hagerstown, through mountain tunnels and around Civil War grasses. And I suppose this is the only way the heart of a country can survive the years. It slips between us on back lanes as someone notices a barn, or a mill, or trailer, or a rusty bike broken on a porch. Something of America will squeeze its way into a poem and someone will read it and remember a moment in the landscape. And America so blessed, for the reader will forget these words, maybe as quickly as they are read, but then later discover another moment in the landscape, falling in love again.

Because something always lingers; and I do not know whether it is the best thing, or even a moment worth remembering. These bits are only what I have noticed today. What I know for sure is that in a few hours, the sky will dim and there will be no lights bowing over this rural highway lighting the last long stretch before the big cities of the East. The grains will sit content in their silos. The mountains will be all but invisible behind the dark towers of rain clouds. And I imagine with much comfort in my heart, field dogs leaving the trails of rabbits for tomorrow, skipping home to sleep at the feet of their masters.