The Holy Breath of America
From “How to Moan Like an Ogre”
It was like everything before. Five years ago. But with a different rucksack on my back and a much farther destination to cruise on after. The train six Zephyr had finally rolled in and I walked the side walk all the way down till I found the coach cab, with Amtrak uniformed joes asking along the way, “Where ya going?” And I’d respond back with a tired, cold “Chi-ca-go” and kept on. I rustled into the train and walked up the tight stairwell, finding an open section on the left side which was just the same as it had been before, with the same sandy blue stained seats and the same low count of people dragging themselves in all sordid like and filling up their own tight fitted territories. And haggard as all hell, from running on only an hour of sleep, I was ready for the train to begin to move. For that long journey to start chugging, with sweet consoling peace settling on down into and around me. San Francisco, bye-bye! You were, and I mean it, a nice treat while it lasted. But the next two days of rolling and rolling was really where I was at — mentally and spiritually. Sure . . . there was Chicago — Mecca of the Midwest, sitting awfully pretty at the other side of the tracks, with the ole Group Baby boys Tyson and J.J. waiting, drunk and jovial, loud as ever, with whiskey in hand to greet me. And yet, that was only a morsel of my being out there, away from home and my lady. See, the Truth, Now and Forever, will always be to me, that the honest, holy, untainted and incorruptible breath of America was out there. Strumming gorgeously through those two and a half days of straight chug-chug-chugging. Out babbling beside the rippling frosty beaches and cu-cooing winsomely down far crescendoed valleys, ranges, and mounds of ramps that cruised upwards towards the ominous sky full of rough brown and green speckled Terra! Terra! Terra! Embolden and silent, like wondrous gods and patient holy buddhas, smiling fat cherub smiles before precious miles of the truest verdant plains of purity you can ever live to see.
And hours well after our embarking, by dusk, I had fully seen a good chunk of its exhale — flowing and swooshing alongside each mile which stretched me out into this gummy glassy-eyed drunken state as I stared out my little window and melted over the whole sight. Like before, I saw it! I saw the breath of America. Simple and foggy blue, calmly bright, yet full of dark hues. Sweeping out of the edges of California and pouring wildly through the magically open medinas of Nevada, Utah, Colorado and beyond! And when the next day came dawning I grew a more uncontainable glassy-eyed mess. Rolling on and on, taking genteel moments in the observatory lounge with small bottles of wine by my side, I saw it further. Through sculpted canyons towering over head like brut tan painted kingdoms guarding playground plots of creeks, rivers and everlasting lush fields, which forced a subtle thought upon myself:
If only the wicked pricks out there could submit and come here and run and roll through all that greeny plush green grass and just climb those gorgeous peaks for a while then they could but only become good, and if all the true good people out there could come as well, then they would too find themselves truly wise and wiser. Devoid of the senseless, intrinsic noise of modern society, the holy breath of America prevails and flourishes — true. Simple and foggy blue . . .
From How to Moan Like an Ogre
Available in paperback and Kindle ebook
Copyright © 2019 by H. Jean-Baptiste
