July 27: "The Drive," Supreme Act of Trust, "Precious Cargo"

Billy Collins goes for a ride . . . 

The Drive

by: Billy Collins

There were four of us in the car

early that summer evening,

short-hopping from one place to another,

thrown together by a light toss of circumstance.

I was in the backseat

directly behind the driver who was talking

about one thing and another

while his wife smiled quietly at the windshield.

I was happy to be paying attention

to the rows of tall hedges

and the gravel driveways we were passing

and then the yellow signs on the roadside stores.

It was only when he began to belittle you

that I found myself shifting my focus

to the back of his head,

a head that was large and expansively held.

As he continued talking

and the car continued along the highway,

I began to divide his head into sections

by means of dotted lines,

the kind you see on the diagram of a steer.

Only here, I was not interested in short loin,

rump, shank, or sirloin tip,

but curious about what region of his cranium

housed the hard nugget of his malice.

Tom, my friend, you would have enjoyed the sight--

the car turning this way and that,

the sunlight low in the trees,

the man going on about your many failings,

and me sitting quietly behind him

wearing my white butcher's apron

and my small, regulation butcher's hat.

I'm not a good passenger in a car.  Prefer to be behind the wheel.  It's very difficult for me to give up that control, unless I have complete confidence in the driver's skills or am incapacitated in some way (it happens with insulin-dependent diabetics).  But, given the choice, I will always drive.

Letting another person drive me somewhere is a supreme act of trust--that the driver will not go all Fast & Furious on me and that the driver knows where the hell we're going.  I once saw President Obama's motorcade traveling from the local airport to a speaking engagement at the university.  The vehicles in that convoy were going at least 80 to 90 miles per hour along the highway with a police escort, which convinced me that I would never want to be President of the United States.

Today, I didn't drive too much.  My wife had the car at work, so much of my ambulation was by foot.  I mowed my lawn, took my puppy for a long walk, and, in the afternoon, strolled up to church to play the pipe organ for Saturday evening Mass.  It was close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit today, so I ended up sweating in impolite places for a good portion of my waking hours.

Now Saint Marty's feet are a little sore tonight.

Precious Cargo

by: Martin Achatz

Every time I picked up her daughter

for a date, my future mother-in-law

would tell me, "Drive safe.  You have

precious cargo."  Her words stuck

with me as I got behind the wheel,

turned the key in the ignition.  It was

a matter of trust, the way a mother robin

pushes her baby out of the nest, trusts

air and feather and instinct to keep

that fledgling safe from gravity's hunger.

I would take her daughter to dinner, a movie,

maybe skinny-dipping in Lake Superior, then,

late on some dark road, parked, slipped

into the back seat with her, pressed against

this precious cargo, felt breath and heartbeat

fluttering on my fingertips, a winged thing

trying to take flight for the first time

into the freckled heavens of my body.