Perhaps a valley. Surely desert.
Perhaps a mountain range over there.
Perhaps a whole rhythm of ranges.
Slot canyons, too. And a ribbon
of trees along where a river might be,
the leaves not yet yellow,
the limbs not yet bare.
But all I see beyond pavement
and white and yellow lines,
is thick black night and
a memory of years ago,
driving this same highway,
falling in love with the way light
and shadow played across the vastness.
Somehow I am alive both now and then.
As we wind and climb and curve
through the dark,
I carry that old light with me.