CROSSING AMERICA ~

Crossing America


I.


We hitchhiked America. I

still think of her.



I walk the old streets thinking I

see her, but never.



New buildings have gone up.

The bartenders who poured roses

into our glasses are gone.

We are erased.




II.


Minook, Illinois,

one street out of nowhere through cornstalks.

Winter clutched the cornfields into Chicago.

Cold, we couldn't get in out of the cold.



But a lonely filling station owner risked

letting his death in out of the night.

I lay on his gas station floor and let her

use me for a bed.



I will never forget the cold into

my kidneys or lying awake bearing the

pain while she slept like a two month

old child on the hill of its mother's tit.



It was on the stone floor

that I knew I loved her.




___________________________

just a portion of this excellent long poem by
Leo Connellan
Crossing America
Penmen Press, 1976

WALDEN THEN & NOW ~

——————————————

I've yet to see, read or own a Michael McCurdy book, or a book

illustrated by McCurdy, that wasn't greatly enhanced by having McCurdy's

wood engravings — none more finer than in his own reading of Walden —

an A-to-Z showcase with McCurdy referring to Henry's world

and updating it to McCurdy's own, also a Massachusetts boy.

Balance is beauty.

Charlesbridge Books

Watertown, MA.