Somewhere this road doesn't go

Cebolla Road From Chama

We stop for roadwork, wait
for wind and cricket talk to
take us on to Ghost Ranch.

After ten minutes, the fat Indian
waves us through, nods slowly
from his sun-worn ocher bandana.

Everywhere is somewhere we want to be.

So we arrive to find the ghost
evicted, the gate closed with a
Sorry For The Inconvenience.



The road does what roads always
do: take us further from being
there; closer for having been.

In the distance, anvils of rock
rise and temper steel mesh skies
swollen raw with unforged rain

too coy to test lower altitudes and
shielded eyes. Late May sun lances
itself in red-gold strikes across dark

mesas and we are hopeful this day will
lead to night, to comfort and a restful world
holding all we have come to expect of it,

all that it may grant those too dependent on
such hope. We have seen days like this,
days holding something other than what

our future had planned. But we learn to swallow
disappointment like brown canyon water, full
of unmapped tastes from somewhere upriver,

somewhere this road doesn’t go.

Joseph Gallo
May 2000