Well, It's Not Rainy, It's Not a Sunday, and I Do Love This Poem...

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Driving at Night

by Sheila Packa

Up north, the dashboard lights of the family car
gleam in memory, the radio
plays to itself as I drive
my father plied the highways
while my mother talked, she tried to hide
that low lilt, that Finnish brogue,
in the back seat, my sisters and I
our eyes always tied to the Big Dipper
I watch it still
on summer evenings, as the fireflies stream
above the ditches and moths smack
into the windshield and the wildlife's
red eyes bore out from the dark forests
we flew by, then scattered like the last bit of star
light years before.
It's like a different country, the past
we made wishes on unnamed falling stars
that I've forgotten, that maybe were granted
because I wished for love.

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 11, 2009 at 7:59 PM

    I love it, beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  2. KathleenNovember 11, 2009 at 9:46 PM

    Oh, yeah, I luvvvvv this one.
    And so nice to see you 'round the 'hood.
    Hope all's going well with you and the fam!

    ReplyDelete
  3. WinnyNinny PooPooNovember 11, 2009 at 11:49 PM

    Reminds me of roadtrips in the old Rambler that had no airconditioning so we drove at night...

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownNovember 12, 2009 at 5:09 AM

    Love star gazing so this poem is particularly beautiful to me.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The PliersNovember 12, 2009 at 8:50 AM

    ¡Hola!

    You never know what kind of commenters you might find en route to la belle France with a layover down Mexico way, hiding out in a Blahgness Protection Program.

    I have missed you much more than the poetry, although, of course, it is transcendent. It's just that you are more so.

    Amitiés,

    ReplyDelete
  6. dsNovember 12, 2009 at 11:04 AM

    Welcome back! Thank you for the beautiful, beautiful poem. The past is, indeed, "a different country.."

    ReplyDelete
  7. OwenNovember 12, 2009 at 7:15 PM

    Dear Distracted, a pleasure to see a light in the window... and smoke out the chimney...

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownNovember 12, 2009 at 8:53 PM

    Yay...she's back. Sunny day, everythin's A-OK -with acknowledgment to that other great US export, Sesame Street - still going strong after 40 years!

    Know all about road trips in this wide brown land of mine. Very evocative. Glad I accidentally drove past your place.

    ReplyDelete
  9. LydiaNovember 13, 2009 at 2:08 AM

    Sweetest poem. Makes me wonder what kind of childhood I'd have had if I'd been raised around the half of my roots that are Finnish.

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnonymousNovember 13, 2009 at 1:22 PM

    Imagine my surprise...
    catching up on reading...
    and there she was!
    Big smiles...
    happy day...

    ReplyDelete

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

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