Freedom
       

You had to be alone to experience freedom. Or with one person you loved.
          Beyond that, obligations set in and the condition slipped the county line.

People frequently criticized the association of freedom with automotive travel, but
          wouldn't Thomas Jefferson, Harriet Tubman, Lewis and Clark and Black
          Elk love a Cadillac ride across the inter-mountain West, spitting seeds,
          listening to some distant ball game on AM radio, watching geology pass in
          a time-lapse they never imagined?

There was one part about justice, one part about guns, one about money, sex, and
          land.

Horses and trucks. Chickens and ducks. I witnessed a Mallard's mourning once,
          on a golf course.
Its life mate lay dead in the rough, and the bereaved bird flew and returned, over
          and over, as if to coax its lover back to life with the prospect of one last
          spin around the bunker.
          Finally, it rested next to her. It was sobbing in human terms. The realization of its
          loss and sudden alone-ness was affecting the visible behavior of the duck.

By imagining all creatures' representational systems, the precious glimmer of
          freedom can make you giggle and cry in an earnest way if wonder is still
          available to you.

One time, I drove all night with a woman I'd previously made out with. I took a
          gamble and played music I liked, though I thought she'd find it weird,
          but she just laid her head in my lap and I rested my arm along her body, and I
          drove while she slept.

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Copyright © 2020 William Stobb All rights reserved
from You Are Still Alive
42 Miles Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission