Out There

for Charles Levendosky

Wind like a razor
slides over the smooth
cheeks of the plains.

In my car I feel conspicuous.

I stop to walk
and turn to watch
the road laid like afrown of stone across
the endlessness of grass.
The idling car is fatally apparent.

No map I carry hints at this.

Later, driving on,
I wonder what it is
out there that notices
me as I pass,
what sensibility thrives
in all that terrible vigilance of grass.

~William Pitt Root