Sages With Secrets

Added 23 June 2003

Forty-five.
That's what the gauge reads.
Twenty lower than the limit.
Once again trying to expand vapors
into miles of desolate highway.

Gas is rare.

Even mile markers seem scarce.
The odometer says the posts
are faithfully one mile apart.
It has to be a lie.
They must be conspiring.

They must be.
Because everything seems so close.
Oh yeah, I can make
it there from here . . .
Famous last words.

The land seems wide open,
no doubt about that;
but distances are deceptive here.
Nothing exists that can give
the mountains scale.
The knee high sagebrush
by the roadside just doesn't cut it.
Even by the thousands,
sages don't measure mountains.

What a philosophical beauty, here.
The grandeur leans in close
to beckon you to secrets,
and gives you infinite
freedom to roam
and find them on your own.

If you don't run out of gas
before you get there.

Written 6 February 2001
Nevada, USA