Do people take car rides
anymore?  Is the cost too
high?

We would spend Sunday's
in the car exploring the
streets and lanes, farms
and small lakes or streams
around northern Indiana.

The weather was always
a wash of sunlight on barns,
small grassy paths, cows
and chickens lowing and
crowing.  

We would stop for a minute,
kiss as if we belonged to the
shade from the trees and
chatter of the singular little
brooks outside the car.

It was always gentle on
Sunday.  The car seemed
to know where to go. I
would slide across the front
seat and with my head on
his shoulder sigh, forgetting
the hundred pages of
Shakespeare that waited
patiently to keep me up

late into the night, the verbs
to conjugate for Monday.
They could wait. I remember
I loved to inhale the music
of the spring.  

A symphony
played as we rolled down
the windows of our pleasure.

Caroline Shank