Napo 15

Today's prompt was to think about being halfway. I don't know why, but I keep thinking about roadtrips. Maybe it's because, lately, I've been doing so many of them. Journeys. They're such a compelling metaphor for so much of what we do in life.
Anyway, here's my rough freewrite. I want to come back and play with this poem a little more and think about the journey as a metaphor for life, the rest stop like a philosophical fork in the road, where you can turn around and retreat back home, or punch the gas full speed towards your destination, goal, whatever.

Rest Stop

We’re halfway through this journey

Up the state of Texas and my husband

Says he has to stop and piss. We pull off

Into a rest stop, and on the roadside

There blooms an abundance of wildflowers

An embarrassment of colors, petals blushing

As numerous as stars on a clear night –

Winecups like puckered lips, Indian

Paintbrushes like wisps of blood,

Bluebonnets reflecting heaven, at once

So far away and at the fingertips.

The flowers sway in spring’s gusts

Of wind on the equinox. The beauty

Overwhelms, too much to take in

Here, in this place where trucks idle,

Spewing black smoke into the air,

Where a man in his car hurridly

Unwraps a burger, stuffs his mouth

With fries, where a child scurries

Across the lawn and tramples flowers

Under her sandals as she makes her way

To the rest stop’s bathrooms. This place,

Is almost heaven but not quite, drenched

In sun, unearths a mid-journey crisis –

Where are we going anyway? I ask.

And why not turn around? My husband shrugs.

The road behind us stretches, endless,

Turns to ocean. The road ahead, the same.

At noon, the stomach rumbles.

We’ve miles to go together.