This is the dream: such distance
the oncoming wind is brother to,
long silk of the highway spun off
between the shoulders of the roadside.
All day the singing in tall weeds,
the grasshopper’s confession, the birds
remembering their plainchant, reciting
Some dawn the mist blows free, some
afternoon of dusty sunlight, the soundtrack
a far falling of a river over stones
Mozart’s ear might have listened to.
West through willow country, villages
of woodsmoke sleeping in the valley,
or on the causeway through the lowlands
beneath the high white music of the larks.
Or anywhere. Across the upland,
sunset shimmering the treeline, gone
across the cobbles of the market,
the tall road only halfway to forever.