Driving with Brubeck

(random riffs on the road)

Concrete seams click beneath
the rapid turn of wheels

trying to impress the need
for arrival, as a sax greets an expanse of blue

waving on a horizon breaking free
of its cloudy blanket, revealing

more blue as grapevines,
in row after orderly row, march

up a snow covered slope,
drummer keeping the beat.

Gulls wander in from the lake,
and hilltop turbines can’t keep up.

Five takes, and no photo worthy of saving.
This ain’t no St. Louis, but the sky is still blue.

Ken Gierke is a retired truck driver, transplanted to Missouri from Western New York. In spite of muddy water and a dearth of maples, after only ten years he is coming to think of Missouri as home. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming both in print and online in such places as Ekphrastic Review, Amethyst Review, Silver Birch Press, and The Gasconade Review. His first collection of poetry, Glass Awash, has been published by Spartan Press. His website: https://rivrvlogr.com/