Highway Trees

The wind breaks planted along the highway look
like the front porch of a forest full of sunlight.
There’s always a hawk dropping down, talons out,
onto a limb in the crown of one of those trees.
You could be flowing down a trench, cut smooth
through the wooded swells of the Ozarks,
but look out the side window and the empty fields
show behind the shallow blind, breathing in the heat.

God is growing along the roadside. The loneliness
of old lovers grows here too. This is a dark
forest made of long twin rails of trees. There are
no hawks standing in the dust on the fields;
they’re all landing in the trees right in view.
Each one reminds you a bit of a tree you climbed.
Each has a wide nest, and every nest contains
an egg already rocking itself awake.