Driving Into Our New Lives

by Maria Mazziotti Gillan

Years ago, driving across the mountains
in West Virginia, both of us are so young
we don't know anything. We are twenty-eight
years old, our children sleeping in the back seat.
With your fresh Ph.D. in your suitcase, we head out
toward Kansas City. We've never been anywhere.
We decide to go the long way around
instead of driving due west.

Years ago, driving across mountains, your
hand resting on my knee, the radio playing the folk
music we love, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, or you
singing songs to keep the children entertained.
How could we know what is to come?

We are young. We think we'll be healthy
and strong forever. We are certain we are invincible
because we love each other, because our children
are smart and beautiful, because we are heading

to a new place, because the stars
in the coal-black West Virginia sky are so thick,
they could be chunks of ice.
How could we know what is to come?

Comments

  1. Priceless...road journeys into and through life are my thing! Ciao

    (word verification: fulnesse, fulness, fulfillment and finesse: how apt!)

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  2. Youthful promise. I like this.

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  3. Oh, the memories brought tears to my old eyes!

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  4. This post gave me goosebumps. We never do know.

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  5. It captures that moment of youthful optimism so well, and the "what was to come" is haunting.

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  6. Lovely, but it made me very sad
    :-(.

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  7. Lovely, and powerful. "How can we know what is to come?" How can any of us know? Thank you.

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  8. A good reminder to enjoy the NOW!

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  9. I agree with Barb, this is a reminder to live in the here and now and enjoy lifes journey.

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  10. btw - go here and look at this...

    http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/April+PAD+Challenge+Day+1.aspx

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  11. How can we ever know, right? But such a beautiful entry...

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  12. It is better not to know. Always better...

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  13. How timely. Recently I have been thinking about the past and think everyone's mantra should be: How can we know what is to come? and we should think long & hard about that. If we think that perhaps we will make the absolute best of each day.

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Hey, thanks for your thoughts and your time:>)

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