Voyaging to a Hamburger Joint

dedicated with love to my Mom Cecelia

Having dodged a hundred bullets,
championed some ten lost causes,
forgotten a thousand amazing tales and concepts,
and measured more than a few afternoons in coffeespoons,
I sit here in my mom’s beautiful Ashland, Oregon home
leafing through a flat history of “the western world”
and panning the web-river for nuggets of fascination.

Feeling hungry, I set my aim for an “independent” hamburger joint
some three steep blocks away.
as I set to step out the door,
my knees tremble at the drop…
remembering recent falls,
and my mind pictures speeding SUVs,
(part of my brain starts to hear
staccato gun fire)

But hunger aids my bravery
and soon I anxiously climb the street
looking both ways thrice
till I’m by the freight-rail tracks from where
(amid the dry, pine wooded hills)
I can see a green, lush tract with some 200 cattle...
spots of mish-mashed white, red, brown, and black,
as well as a solid farm house
and a big red barn.

There's blue spray paint on the track's stone gravel
(the former taking centuries for science to form)
and the hot sun is huge,
striving to dry the neighborhood's pleasant lawns,
and I’m glad I prepared by drinking agua fria.
knowing my current weakness,
I press on and upward

Coming down the street,
I see a cruising brand new Mercedes;
my heart shudders and there’s disarray in my brain
but I claw my way onto the sidewalk in plenty of time

Entering an area of condos,
I stop as I see
a hummingbird chase the same out of a pinkish-violet Lilac tree.
amid the quiet, I allow myself to think of that heroic woman
(unfortunately a FOX reporter)
who spoke beautifully of the Palestinian people
after her kidnapping and release,
and soon my Thoughts turns to hard-fought tennis matches
con mi amigos en Harnosand, Sweden,
and then to the taste of Scotch
thence to baser incarnations of the “good creature”
and finally to:
“how came things to this hobbled state?”

I was fading:
my legs giving way to gravity’s ache
and my spirit to vapidity.
(I saw shroom flashback bubbles drifting their ways through the blue, blue sky)
The restaurant was just 40 feet away,
but up the last and toughest grade

So, after screwing my courage to the sticking place,
I flailed my way up the unfeeling asphalt
and made my way through two glass doors.
inside, next to the register,
I saw a picture of a local hot air balloon
which my grandfather George once took a ride in
(smiling beneath his full nordic beard)

“Ola,” I said to the motherly counter lady
(only about 30,
with earrings consisting of bluish crab claws.)
Naturally charmed, she said, “Como estas, amigo?”
and so it went, ending with: “Quieres papas fritas?”

the plentiful beef had a hearty and good taste
the guacamole wasn’t fresh
the bun was quite white but didn’t even start to fall apart

(and honey-bees continue their beauteous rounds
the fathomless cosmos their dances
cattle their looking and grazing
and coffee-stirring people their feeling connected to these…
and how many other happenings!)