the shunpiker

shunpike: (n) a side road taken instead of a turnpike or expressway to avoid tolls or to travel at a leisurely pace. (origin:1850-55, Americanism)

never mind the blacktop:
cracked macadam
flattened roadkill
smell of exhaust
60 mph dust and so forth.

I lunged over the lawn
where sweet grass swung up to meet my foot
"make your own path", I considered.
okay.
so I cut a wide swath northward
nipped the budding hedgerow where sparrows darted anxiously
noted the plunging hurrupp of a barrel-chested frog in the marsh
and struck out for the farthest field,
past where the wild turkeys strut
beyond the rusted barbed wire fence
between the scraggly low cedars
through the strip of marshy lowland
and straight on over the mounded meadow
where a giant bee loped past my head.

Half-expecting to come upon a fairy-ring,
I stood mute-
wary of nothing-
and breathed the yawning vapors of watered roots
sprung from the greening thatch.

I veered away from last year's track
where the faithful farmer lugged shifting stacks of hay
atop his wagon towards the barn-
(the warmth of a thousand afternoons trailing behind)
and I shrugged away the deer's vining trail
that skated thorn and bush.

Instead, I stepped a crooked course,
letting gait fall where it may
looking up more than anywhere
(certainly more than looking behind)
knowing that tomorrow I would likely take the road
as I most always do.

and wistfully so.