Take River Road past the mill,
past the ditch and broken rail,
past the field gone brown and flat,
past the houses worn and pale,
and there’s a bend where evening comes
earlier than the rest of town,
as if the day gets tired there
and sets its heavy bucket down.
I used to ride that road with friends,
all noise and jokes and half-known plans,
heels on the dash, bad singing, smoke
from somebody else’s older hands.
Yet once I went there by myself
near dusk in late October light,
and every tree stood stripped and dark
and made the whole road think of night.
I do not know what I went looking for.
I only knew I had to go.
Some roads begin as roads, then turn
into the place your mind will show
itself more plain than rooms can do.
That bend was one of those for me.
A person can be seventeen
and feel both trapped and almost free.