Tag: the road

Poetry by Patrick JenningsDec 18, 20207:00 am

Exiting the Sierras, Nebelhorn, Lincoln Highway, California, United States of America

Instamatic Memory Machine

Much as I hate moving
And all that packing
Which takes forever
As I go through the shoe boxes
Of memorabilia
Stacked in the closet
Which have remained unopened
Since the last time I moved

I have to admit
To some minor or major
Moments of fascination
Or delight
Or longing
Emotion moving my core
With some rekindled
Long-forgotten moment
Or chapter
In a life becoming much too long
To hold all the memories
Within my mind alone

A birthday card
A letter written but never sent
Elementary report cards
And aptitude test results

A story I’d written
With misshapen letters
And a child’s innocence
A Dragnet drama
Starring a detective snake
Age eight

Poetry by Patrick JenningsDec 17, 20207:00 am

Tunneling, Willow Ranch, Interstate 395, California, United States of America

Comfort Food

It was a straight run
Down valley
And at 100 miles an hour
The landscape became a gun barrel
I rifled through

The road was freshly paved
Though heavily pebbled
So the car hummed
As it shimmied in the heavy winds

Here was I
A projectile crossing open country
Which to my being is as good

As being wrapped in a blanket
By a fire on a snowy winter’s eve

Road trips are comfort food for my soul

Poetry by Patrick JenningsJul 6, 20201:09 pm

Winding Road to Valley Floor, Father Crowley Outlook, Panamint Valley, Death Valley National Park, California, United States of America

Winding ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #239

The road winds down
To valley floor
From there the way
Cannot be known

With scant resource
For alternates
My faith is firm
No other course

Now heart resolved
Courage mustered
With just one step
My fears dissolved

Landscape by Patrick JenningsMay 19, 20201:53 pm

Rearview, South on State Road 375, Nevada, United States of America

Choices

I make choices
Sometimes they’re wrong
Sometimes they’re right

Sometimes I know
Which way they’re going to go
Even before I make them

More often they go
The way they’re going to go
Long before I see the right or the wrong

I make choices
Sometimes I realize
Sometimes I don’t

Until they’re in the rear view mirror

Poetry by Patrick JenningsMar 23, 20207:00 am

A Glimmer Beyond the Surreal, Golden Gate Bridge, From the Marin Headlands, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Glimmer ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #225

I come to
At the shadowy peak
Of surreal darkness
Above a world both familiar
And utterly strange

Shrouded beacon
Reaches into the murk
Whisper of stifled radiance
Beckons

Illuminates
A serpentine road
Beginning and end uncertain

Strike out for the unknown
Keep faith the road reaches the bridge

Hopeful glimmer beyond

Poetry by Patrick JenningsDec 30, 20195:35 pm

The Road Below, Father Crowley Overlook, Panamint Valley, Death Valley National Park, California, United States of America

Extremes of a Year’s Journeys

The road leads down
A scabrous red cut
Into a valley of death

The azure sky
Suspended upon its downy bed
Of purest white

Extremes of a year’s journeys
Found in a single switchback descent
Just ahead of a desert sunset

Somehow, I find
All of it
Beautiful

Poetry by Patrick JenningsJan 12, 201911:02 am

Winter Rangeland, Highway 87, Somewhere between WInslow and Phoenix, Arizona, United States of America

Move along

It’s time to set
The wheels in motion
Time to move along
Not so much
To just be rolling
Much more to have
Intent

No need for
Destination
No need
To have a plan
Not yet

But scan
Horizons
For potential
For places I’d like
To get

Poetry by Patrick JenningsDec 28, 201810:23 am

Blackened Earth, Highway G215, Nearing Liuyuanzhen, Gansu Province, China

Rolling through the Ebony

Rolling through
A land of crushed ebony
Tarry asphalt dividing
The slender white lane markers
And scrubby tufts of amber

I scramble up an ebony mound
To find a landscape of ebony mounds
Growing to distant mountains
All of the same ebony skin

“At least,” I think, out loud
Into the air so dry
It swallows up the words
Right off my tongue
“the falling sun seems less
Like a fire
On a cast-iron skillet.”

Poetry by Patrick JenningsJul 3, 20181:32 pm

Footsteps in the Dunes, Ming Sha Shan, Mountains of Singing Sand, Dunhaung, Gansu, China

Going Forward

I carry my past
In a backpack
So I am never far
From the moments
Which defined me

Events
Connections
Love, loss
Attainment, failure
Lessons, places, people
Glories and gaffes and grace

Everything that ever happened
To get me here
Where I’m standing
In this moment now
On the path
To who I’ll be

Poetry by Patrick JenningsApr 29, 20182:41 pm

Railway Sunset, Route 66, Mojave Desert, California, United States of America

The Long Straight and Narrow

Some roads are a joyride
Some roads are a roadtrip
Some roads are a journey

And some roads are the long haul
Running straight and narrow
Ending somewhere beyond the horizon

Roll onto one of these
And I’ve made a commitment
Right to the end of the line