HITCHHIKE

Hitchhike

the long road home
doesn’t always run in one direction
has thousand mile stretches
that existed before you started
dizzied you with distance
until you feared to be faint-hearted
thrilled you with the terror
that you might lack the courage to make it
spanned a continent from Pacific to Atlantic
and took you with it
and brought you back again
from Atlantic to Pacific
cured you of the aimless itch
and the vague ache that lured you
one teenage summer to hitchhike it
made you a pilgrim
with pilgrim companions
sharing hardships and hard floors
and hard times
made you a bed in a ditch by the roadside
or on a picnic table in a mountain park
or a flat-tyred car in the prairie dark
gave you a rosary of stories to tell
all strung on a string of endurance
levied cold and hunger and fear
as the penance paid up in advance
taught you to trust to chance
smell danger, talk to strangers
tell jokes and chain smoke
take it as it comes, stick out your thumb
stand still and wait and trust to your fate
because however scared you might be
when you’re going away
that you’ll never get where you’re going
everything is easier, time goes faster
the road is shorter, the weather doesn’t matter
the rides are better, there’s not much worry
when you’re not in a hurry
and your pack is lighter
and your mood is brighter
when you’ve already braved the unknown
for you always get where you’re going
when you know you’re going home

Truth

the long road home passes through
perceptions and perspectives
that are true
so true

that there is no explaining them
and any attempt to do so
ends up like an elephant
described by the blind-folded

or the camel that is a horse
designed by committee
for what a pinpoint of light can reveal
with absolute clarity

the way the sun so far away
so small in the sky
can light up half the world simultaneously
a whole forest of spotlights

a hundred human viewpoints
a National Commission of inquiry
a plethora of camera flashes flickering
will only confuse and betray

drive into darkness again
obscure with exactly as many shadows
as there are lights
provoke contradiction consternation dismay

hostility futility contumacious puerility
where we all spit the dummy
throw down the bat in a huff
take our ball and go home

cry enough is enough
and for the rest of our lives treasure
the truth that we and we alone
possess in full measure

Edith Speers was born in Canada and immigrated to Australia after university. Her poetry has been published in all the major Australian literary journals, numerous Australian anthologies, several Canadian, U.K. and American journals (e.g., The Dalhousie Review, Acumen, Antipodes), and "Art of the Sonnet", a Norton anthology. She has won many literary awards for both poetry and short stories and is the author of three books of poetry, with a fourth to be published in 2025.