Silence Remembered
Arizona summer vacation
’42 Ford
Front seat
Mom and Pop
Back seat
Me and my P-38
Armin’ out the window
Night brought the end of a long dusty stretch
Just ahead
Divide of the road into two lanes
As an old Texaco sign glowing bright
Lured Pop right up to the pump
Through the station’s smudged windows
A light bulb hung down idle
Turned off the engine
Waited
Pop
Or
Mom
Maybe would get out of the car
Look around
No attendant?
Instead…
We all listened to the silence
And stared ahead at the divided road
That had a lonely air
Of waiting for something
Remembering
Pop found it hard to find words for.
On a dry summer night without a moon
Without stars
Without even crickets
With no life in sight
Only a lone light bulb
I was just a kid
But…
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Reminded me of the first time I stayed at my brother's house outside of Phoenix. I often had to get up and go to the bathroom and never turned any lights on. But in that bedroom that even had a window, it was so dark that I was reaching for the walls like a blind man as I navigated down the hall to the bathroom. Or the time Nick and I arrived in the wee hours to dusty little Dayton, Nevada. Couldn't find a blade of grass to sleep on. In a ballfield, I found a roll of chicken wire that made some sort of bouncy springs and slept there. Thinking later there may have been rattlesnakes sleeping under. Some of those memories just stick with us, don't they?
Ron