Gliding.

Gearhart, Between Showers, 1923

So This Is Nebraska

The gravel road rides with a slow gallop   

over the fields, the telephone lines   

streaming behind, its billow of dust   

full of the sparks of redwing blackbirds.

On either side, those dear old ladies,

the loosening barns, their little windows   

dulled by cataracts of hay and cobwebs   

hide broken tractors under their skirts.

So this is Nebraska. A Sunday   

afternoon; July. Driving along

with your hand out squeezing the air,   

a meadowlark waiting on every post.

Behind a shelterbelt of cedars,

top-deep in hollyhocks, pollen and bees,   

a pickup kicks its fenders off

and settles back to read the clouds.

You feel like that; you feel like letting   

your tires go flat, like letting the mice   

build a nest in your muffler, like being   

no more than a truck in the weeds,

clucking with chickens or sticky with honey   

or holding a skinny old man in your lap   

while he watches the road, waiting

for someone to wave to. You feel like

waving. You feel like stopping the car

and dancing around on the road. You wave   

instead and leave your hand out gliding   

larklike over the wheat, over the houses.

- Ted Kooser