first car down the road
on a summer morning

scissortails and mockingbirds
scatter from the powerlines

rabbits bound ahead
and then dodge into the grasses

luxuriant and wild
grape vines

cloak the barbed wire
and smother the hackberries

cumulus clouds
still tinted pink and gold

rise lazily above
the freshly mown fields

with their stubble
and neatly rolled bales of hay

tires hum
leaves rustle in my wake

the heat has already
begun to pool

in shimmering illusions
that dissolve

on the blacktop ahead


Tom Spencer © 2019