The World According To Ben Part 21 ...The Most Interesting Poet In The World Takes The Riv For A Cru

“Let’s Just Go For A Ride”

(A Double Sonnet)

Right turn. We’ll take the road beside the lake— A quarter mile, then overarching trees. Car rolls effortlessly with subtle rake, Nose higher than the tail. Sweet hardtop breeze.

Bends, bends and bends—a peristaltic feel, This side trip though Sylvania near home, Digesting raw beauty. I saw the wheel. Car’s built for straight roads and high style, bechromed.

No hairpin dancer, it sways to and fro. Birds don’t seem to note as they, feathered, fly. Cicadas, grinding, cannot help but know That their deaths and the wintertime are nigh.

We slide, silvery, between pines and oaks, Absorbing nature, telling inside jokes That only couples married long as us Can relate with the proper emphasis. A bit more throttle. Wind begins to muss My dear one’s hair… but she is deep in bliss.

The setting and the dappled sun combine To transport her to other where’s of wonder. She slouches in the leather to recline And I restrain my always-need-to-chunder.

The auto-factoids burbling in my mind. They would be anti-nature, anti-calm. Another place, another day I’ll find Time to recite my hopeless car nut psalms. These wheels convey us to what we desire So on we roll, trees seeming ever-higher.

© Verse-Case Scenario, LLC 2017

This is a transcript of a Riviera drive we took early yesterday afternoon in, around and through the Speedwell section of northern Lancaster County. It ended at the Brickerville House Family Restaurant. Jean had a soup and sandwich lunch combo, choosing egg-and-olive on toast. I had my accustomed Wednesday-special chicken pot pie (done the local, “Dutchie” way—no crust, just tons of noodle and potato carbs).

Throughout the meal, people generally older than we took time to gather around the Riviera—parked as it was just outside the window where we were tabled—and nod knowingly, with smiles. I always like seeing that.