Deborah's "Hard Climb Road"

HARD CLIMB ROAD
for my grandmother

I

Driving home to her funeral in September,
we head down the Piedmont,
taking the freeways that run by fields
and outlet malls, morning stretching away
under the benign and vacant blue skies
Carolina is known for.
A Greensboro station plays oldies in the car,
and loss only lasts till the last dance.
Outside Mt. Airy, we pick up two lanes
through Cana, Galax, and Fancy Gap,
past the hillbilly markets and stands,
molasses, apples, and Dixie kitsch,
trailing pony-tailed girls in pickups.
The day is cool and clear, a weekend
to dream, or retrieve, of family rides
in fall, a peaceful film unfolding
of southeastern hills and farms,
silos and satellite dishes,
sheep still as stones in the fields.
In Virginia, the new road’s half done,
shale shingling up where the cut is rawest.
My sons sing out at every crane,
thrill through blasting zones.
We fly down the far side of vistas
that make majesty almost tangible,
forests like a murky pool we sink in,
greening as we surface.