The Road Most Traveled

Is a one mile stretch of loneliness half-way

Between Powerline Road and the Sacramento

River. My parents built a house there the year

I turned thirteen. I learned how to drive,

Graduating from tractors to a car, on that road.

I lifted up the corpses of three of our dogs

From that road. Each of them had been the puppy

I always wanted. They had not known how quickly

Drivers wanted to get through that deserted place.

After the third I had stopped wanting a dog.

After my teen years that road became a boundary

For the airport. Still years later, I could see

Its black line as we came in for a landing

Over the fields I plowed as a boy, never looking

Up except to see what the wind was blowing

In from the west. Late one night I drove my bride-

To-be down that road. She had never ventured

To such open emptiness before. She worried

Because she could not see what I saw there. Even

Though my parents have long since moved to where

Enough people gather to crowd away

The memories, I am still driving over

That mile of road, waiting for the wind to blow

In from the west; making sure that I drive slow

Enough to see my way clearly to the River.