self-confidence

sassy swinger, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

-- e.e. cummings

I-94

twist in the road, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I am driving into the sun
Up I-94.
You know how I love
Open roads and cruise control,
Squinting into the reflected glare.

That girl is going places
Does backtracking to an outlet mall count?
Briskly, the wind swats at my hair
Pushing violet brown
Into my eyes,
thousands of cylindrical slaps
admonishing me to snap to.

I fancy myself a fast lane driver
Yet, as ever,
I roll along a mere five miles per hour
over the limit,
puttering stalwartly with the elderly and the unconcerned
in this slow lane

Light blasts a path through flashing pines.

My brother, my sisters
we all
each
strive to create beauty,
nurtured by our profound understanding of
what it is not

Tossed onto the passenger seat lies
a tawny colored garment
The brassiere I have not worn
For two years since its purchase
Though still fresh, it has become dusty.
Strands of cat hair from a more youthful time
flitter up and off the smooth cotton
into the wind stream.
A soft layer of history
Waves goodbye.

To prevent the potentially unrecoverable risk of
grabby-fisted patrons
An ink-filled security tag had been affixed to
my travel companion, to
my indulgent purchase.
The tag remains intact
as twinkling pirouettes of light leap
off a passing lake
with watchful winks.

My child is now an adult with bewildering
broad and quiet shoulders.
This baby-man I have assisted
into his current changeling glory

Will he, like me,
struggle for twenty five years before he knows
to delight in the
colorful zaniness of a moss rose?

I contemplate whether he,
using adept powers of recall and observation
as his trustworthy guides,
will allow himself the
luxurious blanketing reward in
being loved by another?

My prayers propel off the wand and
out the open window,
iridescent bubbles of hope
aimed upward
for him;
Catch the wind, beloved.
Ride it! Exult in it!
Count on that which you believe in
Question that which you don’t.

Corn and soy fields flaunt the
simplicity of growing where planted.
Aisle after tantalizing aisle
swaying confidence
and their beguiling proposition
which, I decide, cannot possibly
interpolate the subtle combinations
of sun,
of soil,
of nutrients and seasons.
I volley a string of expletives to
the stalky streams
flying by at warp speed.
It isn’t typically so easy,
Nor is it always as simple
as standing still
and waiting.

A billboard shrieks by,
Jesus Loves You!
Its easiness careening haphazardly
into the already-distant past.

Did the responsibility of double-checking
an inattentive clerk’s work
rest on my soft shoulders two years ago?
Maybe yes.
Maybe no.

Either way,
I am now driving into the sun
five miles below the limit
and great distances from
where I am,
squinting into the reflected glare.