Getting There
Original Version)
We escape our brick house
and seek the beauty of abandon
a lushness you don't find in suburbia.
Driving down Route 2
we pass weathered houses
fruit stands, and tractors for sale.
We’re free to stop anywhere, but we don’t.
We’ve memorized
the tobacco barns with blue sky
slipping through broken grey slats,
the white dogwood trees, green pastures
hemmed in by white paddock fences.
We pass tempting signs for garage sales,
or roadside antiques, but we keep driving.
Stopping means we might miss
the afternoon light over the bay
and we’ve come to depend on that.
Moss covered pond and pink azaleas.
Fresh eggs for sale, baskets of crabs—
legs still moving. Everything natural,
even the rusted cars, fraught with meaning.
Osprey land in their nests on top of telephone poles.
The white barn with mint green shutters
signals our left onto the graveled road.
Rented cottages with tired old screened-in porches
are rimmed with bushes of blue hydrangea--
like a woman’s skirt billowing.
The white-capped majestic Chesapeake appears.
Cumulus clouds fill up the sky and multiply.
Getting There
(Re(En)Visioned)
We escape our brick
and seek the beauty abandon
a lushness, not in suburbia.
Driving down two
we pass weathered
fruit stands, and tractors.
We’re free
Memorized tobacco barns blue sky
slipping through grey slats.
White trees, green pastures
hemmed by
white paddock fences.
We pass tempting signs for sales,
or roadside antiques.
We keep driving.
Stopping, we might miss
the light
over the bay.
Moss covered pond and azaleas.
Fresh eggs, baskets of crabs—
legs moving. Everything natural
fraught with meaning.
Nests top telephone poles.
White barn with mint shutters
signals our left— the graveled road.
Tired old screened-in porches
are rimmed with blue hydrangea.
Like a skirt billowing
the white-capped Chesapeake appears.
Cumulus clouds multiply.
© 2020 Christine Higgins
Christine Higgins is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Hallow (Cherry Grove, 2020). Her latest chapbook, Hello Darling, was the second-place winner in the 2019 Poetry Box competition.
30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review
This sure evokes my old stomping grounds off route 2.