WEBVTT

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I'd like to begin with a poem
called "The Hitchhikers."

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"They burn you like
the berries of mountain

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ash in August standing by
the road clearly defined

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autumnal brilliant,
head scorched

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from waiting in the sun.

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How can you pass them up?

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But you do and dream each
night of a hill where

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you are a hitchhiker, and no one
will ever stop to pick you up.

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Excuses.

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I'm a woman alone.

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I'm moving all my books.

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I need the time for thinking.

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One of them might murder me.

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But really, it is the look
each one gives me of need,

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desperate need, 'pick me up,
or I'll fail to reach my goal.'

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And that need frightens me,
so I look away, speed on,

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dream each night of a
mountain ash with its bunches

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of orange berries gleaming like
the failures of my life burning

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beautifully on the tree.

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Oh, hitchhikers!

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Hitchhikers!

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And they remind me that I drive
across country often looking

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for your face in
each car I pass,

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or which passes me knowing you
would not hitchhike either.

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Thinking of the two
years, I spent with you,

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reliving them over
and over knowing

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I had everything I wanted,
but like Midas, was

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silent and stiff with
the gold I had touched.

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Felt always as if I had been
buried under a ton of diamonds.

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Still feel the dust
of them glinting on me

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as I drive across country.

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My hair sparkling with
the brilliance you left.

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And those hitchhikers, reminding
me of hell, that I had,

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what I wanted once and lost
it, failed, watched myself

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failing, still not understanding
why I failed but knowing I did.

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And still passing 65,
75, 85 miles an hour.

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Those hitchhikers burning
by the side of the road,

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burning like the berries of
the beautiful mountain ash,

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burning like my tongue
on fire, burning me

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as I sleep protected in my rings
of fire, the gleaming car which

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hurtles me through America.

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And all I have is not enough.

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Mountain ash.

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Not the ash from
out of which a bird

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with glinting neck feathers who
flies suddenly up on the road

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in front of the
swift car would come.

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Not the ash on the
foreheads of holy sinners.

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Not the ash of immortality.

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Ash, a tree with its berries
not the color of any jewel, not

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the color of blood, but a
rare and exceptional color

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given only to plants.

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And I see each one of you
as I pass on the road,

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burning like the autumn berries.

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And the beauty makes
me pass by quickly.

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In my car is an altar,
sacrificial stone, and knife,

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the tears of blame and
understanding and blood.

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All the blood my body has lost.

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Oh, hitchhikers!

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Hitchhikers!

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You would not want
to travel with me.

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You would not want
to travel with me."

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