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Highway of Souls

Greg G. Zaino

11:54 pm
Hitchhiking along
Route 6 in Connecticut.
My nighttime guide;

that familiar glow in the heavens
handed it over,
abandoning her hold.
That glorious white light;
Its brilliant release,

halted in mere moments.

My nape hair stiffened
that proverbial icy chill
ran up my spine.
(Oh, that ancient fear.)
As the Moon’s reflection diminished;

I saw in it
a pale testimony to death.

Overhead; clothed in darkness,
Luna’s light

my comrade no longer.
The obsidian night sky shut it out
as though a candle snuffed.
Those ancient night diamonds,

dissolved to the ethereal.

Discomfort settled in
replacing my thoughts of friends
on the other side
& the monotony of placing
one foot in front of the other;
hoping for a ride...

In need of rest;

just a moment of respite,
I was captive under night-time’s
woeful cloak & embraced by

the drowsy stillness of it all.

Lowering myself uneasily
I lay down softly on my back.
Crossing my legs at the knees
I swung up my arms

& knitted my leather gloved fingers
over my chest.
Beneath my weary pate
brittle twigs snapped under

the weight of too many yesterdays.


The crooked trees alongside

this narrow stretch of asphalt;

their leaves now departed,
were as monstrous skeletons.
They whistled & groaned.

There in the long dry grasses
I lay surrounded by
the souls of creatures
taken down by that terrible highway;
an ancient corridor
East coast to west.

I mourned these mammals,
birds, & reptiles;
these fatalities of exodus.
This trek of the innocent
Instead, brought them to
the other side of existence.

I spoke to them,
offering my condolences
apologizing for
human existence
& our machines of death.

Offering my apologies
I felt it necessary to
ask these disturbed spirits
permission
to impose on their sacred soil.

I relaxed, though grim,

spread my arms & legs wide.

Peering up & into the heavens
I searched in vain for

a spoonful of
familiar comfort;
just a single sparkle of
light,
but failed miserably.
The wind ceased its harangue.

giving way to
a nocturnal stillness.

An eeriness overcame me.

I swore I could hear

a meandering murmur.

I lay suspended & listened.
The voice of time spoke to me;
a language only
this wayfarer,
this hitcher, could comprehend.

That chill current trailing
through my galaxy that night,
gently whispered to me,
a reassurance of spirit
in its late October
incantations...

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