I drove down state road seventeen
without seeing a single car.
It was sunny, arguably first days of spring.
Mexican men worked in the apple orchards.
They stood on ladders, pruning branches in a cloud of pink apple blossoms.
Smoke streams from my window, static hangs over the voices on the radio.
I turn right at grainery, I find the first town for miles.
After a high narrow bridge over Snake River,
I pull off near an abandon barn and take a ****.
I wonder how many people have killed themselves jumping from that bridge.
To live in isolation, and still be unable to escape. What do they run from?
There is no sound anywhere, except for me urinating.
Not the wind, nor animals, or machines. Only me.
Back on the road I drive on the edge of valley after valley.
The sun folds the sky into different shades.
The hills of the valleys are smooth from
millions of years of wind and rain.
The soil is thick with the silt of ashes, and sand.
The hills roll onward, almost forever.
I think back to the Mexican men working in the orchards.
Do they thank the rain, the silt, the rock?
Do I?
I approach my destination.
I greet my friend.
I observe his toddler as it learns to walk.
That night, my friend and I sit on stools.
In between drinks, I ask my friend,
"Do you thank the rain, the silt, and the rock?"
"When I remember to," he said.