John Garmon
Filling Station
We take our places in the queue of cars as if we had the right
To get our tanks topped off with stored sun the kind that burns
Sucked from deep down somewhere near or far in this one globe
Then filtered and refined to gasoline a rare commodity that rules us
The young attendants sell the gas and do not stop to think that they
Carry sunlight in their faces as much as flowers and trees do
Their bodies are made of sunshine the way cornstalks are
The same as all fossil fuels like wheat and tomatoes and potatoes
We are the privileged drivers easy in our air conditioned cars
Easy as rain in our vanishing lives simple and expecting privileges
As an extra bowl of rice after a long drought with no rain ever
We are flush with wrinkled money or plastic cards full of meaning
A few minutes and we’ll be driving again out on the roads of destiny
Past tanks where petroleum is stored beyond a future we won’t know
Going about our American business with people from everywhere
Free to travel the kingdom of the road even across the oceans
Into the cycle one more time gazing up into the vastness of stars
Out the window at the sparkling traffic with our radios soothing
We press our feet and feed the horses beneath our hooded dreams
Our cars go in the four directions the way the first people traveled
Let Me Go With You
Let me go with you I also serve by standing and waiting
Both of us pulled by gravity unforgiving bound to earth
Over the polished boulders millions of years shining
Water frothing blue in oceans centuries constructed
We once walked here around the glowing campfires
We kissed the sky with fervent lips of ignorance
You held me in your arms as if you and I were meant
I touched your tears and ran my fingers on your face
You gave me yourself as though you were yours to give
I grew from your touch and became indispensible to myself
You let me in again even though I showed no appreciation
You fed our children and I said goodbye and wished you well
Milk of your breasts gave imagined comfort to their hunger
You gave me comfort and I accepted it and went my way
When I was longing for you after you were gone from me
I gave you songs in my memories of what I should have said
I loved your life although it was no longer a part of mine
You kept mine safely in your forgiving understanding
Then the world settled and took us in new installments
And we turned in our journeys to discover we were lost
We faced the wind and breathed its fragrance deeply
As it blew into our forgotten lives once lived together
From the desert the rains swept the scorpions away
Under birds black and rattlesnakes and slow turtles
Birds with red-tipped wings flew down to taunt us
