Kate Fadick
Road Trip 1 This is the day you are lost.One county road after another then the small townwith the roundabout. Pickups, cars, farm equipmentall circle the monument a red-tail hawkcircles. 2 The house where you grew upis being readied for sale. One last visit today,and you take a pottery bowl, birdhousesyour father made, his rosary. It is the timehummingbirds begin their courageous migration.You see only one. 3 You make a newmap with each trip, take them slow,these weekly sojourns, skirt what was oncethe Great Black Swamp. Its meadows seas of greenthat danced with the slightest summer breeze. Its forestsstood full of oak, sycamore, hickory, untouched,stretched toward the sky. 4 The autumn gold car rolls in linebehind the sleek black hearse. Rain pulls leaves to the windshield,and you wonder aloud where all your father was has gone,spy the hawk circling. An embrace brokenas three Marines begin a slow salute, and youfind your way to the waiting breach in the grass. Kate Fadick is "emerging" as a poet at age 67. Interesting work held the muse at bay for too many years, and now she takes long walks, photographs, and has time to read, as well as write, poems. Her first chapbook, SLIPSTREAM, was recently released by Finishing Line Press.