“He was BEAT—the root, the soul of Beatific. What was he knowing?”
—Jack Kerouac, On the Road
She packs up her traveling self again, seeks
a lightened load for a one night stand
beside the river and its Red Wing rumblings.
Any way to break
the ceramic cast
to her routine deserves a look. This romantic getaway
has room for only one
on the upper deck of the Empire Builder. First stop
and she’s off
tracks on the trail toward bluffs ahead.
When she who is a cowlick
becomes a main character in high anxiety
drama playing through intersections, it’s time
to remove all straight lines, time
to take the long way home on foot.
The crossing goes by
too fast, the span
and stretch will remain imprinted
on my memory reel as long as
they do. Who’s to say
I will carry this one
with me longer than any other bridge
I’ve committed
to memory. Part of the collection
of true spectaculars, it stands
a chance of rising
often and with force.
Distressed fabric, I
did it the hard way.
These creases are real—I
only wish I had smiled more
when these uncloaked
skies came into view.
Abandoned and crowded, you
are my calm in a steady roar
on a warm Sunday afternoon.
Hidden but no secret, you
remind me to cease
my underestimation
of the middle. Oceans
are my soul edges—today
here lies my heart. Just for today.
“What is the Mississippi River?—a washed clod in the rainy night, a soft plopping from drooping Missouri banks, a dissolving, a riding of the tide down the eternal waterbed . . . down along . . . and out.”
—Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Heavy legs won’t lift
the feet so easily over
cobblestoned walkways
on the West Bank. I make believe it’s winding
north, but I’m the one
doing the twisting slowly upward. The water flows
south over falls that used to be
natural spilling below. Louisiana
steam has backwashed against the current
to fill up this Minnesota atmosphere.
It could happen. Anything is possible. Weather is everywhere—
weather is god. I am everywhere
weathering god.
Cold trapped beneath
redwoods outside
the Henry Miller Memorial
Library doesn’t deter me
from standing against evening grain
to see you straight
ahead performing. I know that sound
of aching beauty won’t last. I only wish
those graceful branches could
suspend
the deep wails
from your blues harp the way
these trees, those mountains, the rocks, that ocean hold
steady. You pack up
your guitars and you’re gone
down Highway One. I don’t see you
drive away, but I know
I can feel the air stir
from notes dropping
around substantial roots.
How to memorize a place
like Big Sur
without becoming a thief
is a mystery no cabin
key with a plastic Holiday Inn
shaped tab can slide into, let alone
unlock. It hurts
to witness this dangerous
beauty’s power to break into
the securely fastened chamber
of emotion inside
me. It’s not the dilemma
of choosing to die by a roadside
snake bite or by becoming roadkill
under the wheels
of a musician who never was your lover’s van.
It’s not a choice. The white line will crop the shoulder
how it will at the most substantial curves
in the two lane highway. And I won’t remember
when they come—so busy trying to commit
the impossible reality
of rock and wave and height and crash
to a memory that cannot be
committed. And I could be
in my wobbly attempt.
Across Highway One
from where I slept, from where a hummingbird swept
into the brush to alert me to another
day, I wait.
Fog never fully rolls back to reveal
those mountaintops but allows the sun to be exposed
and exposing
as hours progress. Seams between
sky, ocean, cliff
recede. I’m not waiting—I’m opening receptacles
to turn-outs and drop-offs and rock-ons.
This Noguchi sculpture encased
in glass on the departures level inside the San Francisco Airport soothes
my incurable longing
for what those Big Sur rocks would not release. That he could have been
my soul mate doesn’t matter—he’s been gone
since I was a young woman. That this other creator
of darkest beauty could be is
a lie I tell myself
to keep my feet from straying
off the cliff side path. I believe in
an art that mates soul to soul for a moment. And that is enough
to fly home on.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 