Mud and Dust...

Mud and Dust

A dirt road speaks of serenity

Quite solitude with ample space

Enveloped by pastures and pine groves

Far from the city

Home is simpli“city”.

But the dirt road isn’t really dirt,

It’s gravel, and most of the time

Not even that.

Truth be told to those who only know

What they hear about it in “country music”

is that it’s mostly mud or dust.

Silence, yes.

But violence, too.

Violence on a vehicle, to be sure

Crusted and caked on the undercarriage

Particles invading joints and hinges

Jolts testing bolts

rocks testing shocks

You pay for silence with violence.

For certain seasons—more like days—

The ‘dirt road’ is of perfect consistency

Not too dry so as to birth dust

Not too wet making mud

Goldilocks would say it was “just right”.

The dirt road of our dreams.

Life is like that.

There is an ideal and a real

A belief and a truth

And somewhere in between

The dust and mud of most days

We experience the glorious gravel.

The “just enough” and “not too much”.

The dirt road of John Denver.

I’m trying to ‘let life’ be itself

To curse the mud less

To despise the dust less

To obsess over the perfect day less

Dried by wind and sun

Dampened by dew and drizzle

Packed by exacting traffic—

The good life.

But the good life is mostly mud and dust,

Honest to goodness,

Mixing together beautifully into a

Picture perfect “family night”

On occasion given the right patterns

Of proximity and gravity and levity

Sometimes it’s “just right”.

And the only way to let those nights land

In the human heart

Is to accept the mud and dust

as the dirt road you say you love.

My life is a dirt road filled with silence and violence.

This is real and this is good.