By Now The Red Sun

By Now The Red Sun

By now the red sun rise should be bordering
the outskirts of dark sea.
There should be white ruffled waves
moving just beyond the gray,
far, far, behind me.
By now the arms of the sun have stretched
their fingers into mountain homes,
scalpeling her warm spots
on the walls and floors,
far, far, behind me.
I should be studying this tablet of road
with pencil marks and maps,
notching here and there, an interest,
taking note of future plans.
Instead, I am driving toward the flat lands,
and nothing meets my eyes,
but an occasional silo,
and long distances of quiet.
By now, I should have reached a destination,
or circled a new city from the map of my mind,
but there is a xylophone of warm notes
playing lightly on the road,
and I have passed all the atlas points
of where I meant to go.