Poem of the Week By Guy Roads

Biography:

Note: Guy Roads is the pen name for a most distinguished poet. His photo is a shadow, but his words are out in the sunlight!

Guy Roads is the chief executive officer at World Poetry Headquarters which is located in the heart of the Gin Mountain Range, up above the timberline overlooking a wild river that flows every direction in the free country of the mind where all are welcome.

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Backstory:

It happened suddenly. The weather was changing. Trees were dropping their leaves and the wind had a feel about it that you only get in October. It’s the vision Sal Paradise painted in the final paragraph. It’s what Whitman saw. It’s what seers have been seeing since the beginning. I saw it and you can too.

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Cottage View

Last night I stood beside my car in the Walmart lot
in downtown Cottage Grove
where the old drive-in movie theater used to be
and watched the sun go down on heaven’s screen

How could I not?

As I walked out of the store, a loud flock of geese
flew over my head, honking me awake

They grabbed all my senses and said SEE!

So I did

And there it was

The horizon flaming orange crimson pink and gold
shafts stabbing up through one time only holes
in purple gray cloud mountain palace ranges
and fading water color egg yolk smears
running through powder blue sky fields
being sacrificed to night

And life held me in suspension

There was nothing between heaven and me
for as far as I could see
in this one thin slice of eternity

while the flag lilted on its pole at the VFW
and the semi’s were rat racing up 61
and the beautiful girl with long pink dreads got into her car
and all that I was and never will be
was spreading out before me
and there was nowhere else I wanted to be
not then, not now, not ever
as the sun slipped under the hills
on the other side of the river
and I received it’s gift of grace
and held it in my heart for as long as I could
until I was complete—
then drove along the frontage road
and went back home to sleep.