TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prologue
Poem #
1) Fort Wilderness is Anything But Wilderness
2) Paradise is Burning
3) Sounds of the Sea at 6 AM
4) Everyone’s a Street Performer in Key West
5) A-Key West Sunrise
B-Key West Sunset
6) The People Who Live on Sanibel
7) It’s a Southern Thang
8) Every Building’s Built Adobe Style in Santa Fe
9) Broken Promises
10) The Bear and the Butterfly
11) Su Young Ef Hoya (Little Left-Handed Hunter)
12) Wind on the Mesas
13) Driving Towards the Sunset
14) Mystic Vista
15) It’s Red Dirt This and Red Dirt That
16) A Journey Begins With the First Step Within

Prologue
January 17, 2001- I am a retired dentist. I live a quiet and happy life in Woodstock, New York with my wife Abby, our 19-year old son Noah, our 7-year old son, Justin and our 6-month old black miniature poodle, Fuzzy Mouse. When friends from California came to visit a year ago, they suggested a reciprocal visit to their home. Abby remarked that it was unlikely due to the fact that she hates to fly. I thought further discussion about a cross-country trip was over, and being the homebody that I am, I breathed a sigh of relief. Then, our friends flippantly suggested that we buy an RV and drive to the west coast. Abby’s eyes lit up. I knew I was in trouble. It was the same look in her eyes more than 8 years ago, when she told me she wanted to adopt a baby from Russia, hence Alosha, now known as Justin. It was the same look in her eyes in July of 1995, when she suggested that we just go “check out” some houses in Woodstock on our way to a vacation in Montreal. Four months later we moved here. That afternoon, in July of 2000, we began a month-long quest to learn about, shop for and purchase a Ford Expedition and a 31-foot trailer we named “Francis.”
Thus began a journal whose title became, “Travels With Francis: As Long as I Don’t Have to Back Up the Trailer.” It recounts the adventures and misadventures of my family during our three-month, cross-country trip in the winter of 2001. The manuscript was written, often in great detail, about the main and back roads we traveled, the historic and majestic sites we visited, the sometimes strange, often times beautiful and extraordinary people we met, the exciting experiences and deeply spiritual moments we shared, the surprises, disappointments and challenges that we encountered, and even the items we purchased and the meals that we ate.
During our self- described “trip of a lifetime,” from January 17, 2001 to April 20, 2001, we drove from Woodstock, down the east coast to Key West, Florida, then north again and west through the Florida panhandle, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada, visited our friends (the ones that started this whole thing) in California and then returned east on a different route home. We stayed overnight in parking lots, trailer parks or homes of friends and relatives, and for as long as a week at a time in RV resorts, motels and time-shares. We were blessed to be able to gaze at, explore and visit many beautiful places, but we were especially stunned by the spectacular sunsets we witnessed. In tribute to those sunsets, I have named this book, “Driving Towards the Sunset.”
During the three months, in addition to the more than a hundred pages of manuscript still being edited, I wrote nearly twenty-five poems and took more than 1300 digital photographs. The poetry, though sometimes not chronologically presented, does follow our route from east to west and gives the reader a sense of both the physical and the spiritual journey that we took.
I want to thank and dedicate this book to my sons, Noah and Justin, and my wife and editor, Abby. I love you all.


1) Fort Wilderness is Anything But Wilderness

Men in coonskin caps
greet you at the gates.
Disney’s RV campground
sanitizes the outdoor experience,
whitewashes pioneer spirit,
insults camping “au natural”.

60 feet of Class A bus,
50 feet of truck and trailer,
snake through an obstacle course of
narrow roads lined by grapefruit trees,
white picket fences, sunken garbage pails,
wooden plaques and license plates from every state.

Entertainment is watching Moby Dick
back into Beetle-sized cement space #1919.
All sites have electric, sewer, water, cable, phone hook-ups,
and a pole holding plastic bags
to put your dog shit in.
You have to bring your own satellite dish.

Guests zip and zoom in golf carts.
Cell Phones roam in every ear.
Laptops pay the monthly bills.
Salamanders and armadillos scoot
noses in dirt,
oblivious to humans,

who wait for the Chip n’ Dale bus,
which takes them to Pioneer Lodge,
to catch the paddle-wheel ferry
across the man-made lake
to The Magic Kingdom,
“to infinity and beyond.”
January 27, 2001-Disney World, Florida

2) Paradise is Burning

Paradise is burning while
we swim in the heated pool.
Humankind is learning while
we are fooled,
tricked to believe,
Florida is heaven,
Walt Disney is God.

Flipped oil truck started the fire.
A week later, miles away,
I hesitate with each breath.
Thick Velveeta cheese,
fog/smoke odor of nature’s rampage,
spreads across timeshares,
rolls across citrus groves.

Still smoldering swamp smell
permeates my skin.
I watch the world go on
as if nothing is happening.

At Epcot, GE’s laser finale
illuminates the man-made lake,
explodes the spinning globe.
At home, “GE brings good things to life,”
pollutes the Hudson River,
advertises against the cleanup.

Yes,
Paradise is burning.
Our corporate bed is made.
Paradise is burning.
Our pleasure is the trade.
February 1, 2001-Orlando, Florida

3) Sounds of the Sea at 6AM

This morning in Key West,
the sounds of the sea speak a foreign language to me.
The harbor scene manifests a mystical mystery,
like the magical mountains that surround my home,
I am awakened, startled by its song of peace.

The clouds hold the rising sun for ransom.
Two men in a small motorboat
float across the still water
on a well-worn path to their fishing boat
barely visible in the haze.

Their banter is muffled by the roll of the wind
against seagull wings diving for breakfast.
When the salty curtain lifts and evaporates into gray sky
I see the flicker of a yellow sunrise beyond the marina
absorbed into the aqua of the ocean.
February 4, 2001-Key West, Florida

4) Everyone’s a Street Performer in Key West

Everyone’s a Street Performer in Key West,
magicians and jugglers in Hemingway beards.
Working for tips from out of town folks,
cursing cheap tourists with off-color jokes.

I have come on vacation here,
to float on the pearl blue ocean,
purchase postcards, jewelry and hand-painted T’s
at the Mallory Square’s sunset scene.

Polychrome spray plays peek-a-boo with clouds,
mist sipping the rays.
What fools we mortals be to proclaim,
“there is no sunset today.”

Everyone’s a Street Performer in Key West.
Even the guy with dead fish,
four cats and a pelican.
What a way to “waste away in Margaritaville."
February 7, 2001-Key West, Florida

5)Key West Sunrise-Key West Sunset

A-Key West Sunrise

The sunrise dances over the cool water,
spreads a jade and aqua color rarely seen
through these pollution-jaded eyes.

Boats anchored in the cove
bob like fishing floats.
They seem to be on a path of pitched motion.
Liquid being blown by air
is rippling to the shore.

Sea salt bubbles into
white foam clown nose,
floats into space,
perches on the tip of my poodle’s snout.

The sea speaks to me,
upside down, in muck, sand and reeds,
a bottle, lobster buoy, two beer cans.

The sea sings to me
in the language of wind-blown palm tree leaves
in the sounds of clicking lemon tongues.

B-Key West Sunset

My salty hair crinkled
as I combed away the knots.
Seagulls burst into the sky.
My son hovered over the sand,
a hummingbird on a treasure hunt.

Key West clouds split the sun in half,
sprayed the sunset with yellow streaks,
pink volcanic ash and orange laser wisps.
Gray bearded, warm beer-breath Hemingway clones,
mumbled how the ocean swallowed the sun
differently every day.

It cost $100 to watch the scene from a catamaran
and $45 from a glass bottom boat.
Getting there with a cigar in your lips
and a drink in your hand was expensive.
The sunset was free.
February 8, 2001-Key West, Florida

6) The People Who Live on Saniibel

The people who live on Sanibel
don’t ever want to die.
They just want to pass the rest of their lives,
stretched beneath beach umbrellas,
watch pelicans smooth surface-glide on water,
seagulls dive-bomb splash for clams,
congregate around picnic crumbs
left by hasty tourists.

They just want to skip breathless from
the occasional stingray or lungfish
that forages a bit too close to land,
photograph the dolphins
that play just out of reach
as the sun melts into the horizon.

They just want to walk barefoot
on soft, cool, white,
finely-powdered sand,
collect infinite varieties of seashells,
dangle their toes in the churning shore and
float in the warm gulf waters beneath rainbows.

They just want to live on Sanibel
for eternity.
February 13, 2001-Fort Myers, Florida

7) It’s a Southern Thang

Everyone’s a Born-Again in the panhandle.
Waffle House waitress watches
Benny Hinn slur on TV.
Preaching Jesus-loving folks,
praying with anti-Semitic pokes,
espousing New Testament themes.

Far from my home in the valley,
far from the ice and the snow.
I have chosen to slow my journey,
in the middle of nowhere at all.

I have come to learn my lessons,
touch my heart with God’s plan.
All souls go on forever.
Heaven and Hell are created by man.

Everyone’s a Born-Again in the panhandle.
Even the guy with a cross in his nose,
six rings in his ear.
Please leave me alone,
I’m doing okay,
not living my life out of fear.
February 20, 2000-Defuniak Springs, Florida

8) Every Building’s Built Adobe Style in Santa Fe

Every building’s built adobe style in Santa Fe,
even structures brand-spanking new.
Pueblos blend into brown hills,
motif merges with panoramic view,
mixes with monkey cages at the zoo.

I have come to visit this land
where very few buffalo still roam.
Gape at snow-capped mountains,
gaze at wide-open prairies,
touch spirits asleep within.

The sun reflects red cliffs,
this tribe calls their ancestral home.
Kivas co-exist with casinos
open 24 hours a day,
so white man can play, re-pay and re-pay...

Every building’s built adobe style in Santa Fe,
the result of genocidal history.
I don’t pretend to comprehend, to know
why Indian killer Carson’s a hero,
not Indian warrior, Geronimo.
February 28, 2001-Santa Fe, New Mexico

9) Broken Promises

In New Mexico every mountain view
foreign, yet familiar, overwhelms me.
On every endless turn in the horizon,
the clouds pirouette on deep red table tops,
run on the ground, imitating whirling smoke.

The shadow of shingles in layers
a black curtain, creeping slowly,
closing across the face
of the sun-reflected sienna glow,
into the petrified forest of broken promises.

March 3, 2001-Santa Fe, New Mexico

10) The Bear and the Butterfly

Smoke hugs the San Francisco Peaks.
Clouds stick to the mountaintop like Velcro,
cling to its face like a marionette.
Lightning lives in snow-covered rocks.

It’s still illegal to build towers on the summit.
Ski resorts can’t use artificial snow.
Plowed Flagstaff streets refurbish trails,
domain of Kachinas, holy to Hopi.

Spirit essences visit the reservation
celebrate from Solstice through Summer.
They bring the blessing of enough water
to grow blue corn on the desert floor.

Rainbows connect sky to earth.
Full moons over Walpi
take me one step over the edge
into the fifth world.

I fall into the prism of the bear and butterfly,
drink from tales of spider woman,
dream of praying in the Kiva,
and sleeping in a cave.
March 8, 2001-Flagstaff, Arizona

11) Su Young Ef Hoya (Little Left-Handed Hunter)

A white man can never be Hopi,
yet, can catch Hopi drum/flute fever.
Incurable disease of the rhythm of the heart
snake dances under your skin,
spreads spider web threads
through your soul.

We watch our sons climb cliffs,
above scattered pottery shards and petroglyphs.
The wren visits for the fourth time,
guides us on secret trails
back a thousand years in time
to the edge of the Second Mesa.

We twist and turn,
spin through snow and mud,
on a journey to sacred sites
where the sides of clouds are visible,
wind causes corpuscles to whistle,
sun and moon live and breathe in fire-painted skies.

Little left-handed hunter stands
among ancestral rock and feather altars,
where he too will be buried.
Proud to be Hopi,
body gently curved into fetal position,
he will return what he has taken from the land.
April 8, 2001-Grants, New Mexico

12) Wind on the Mesas

The wind on the mesas
blows my Hopiland hat under the car.

The wind at the Cultural Center
almost lifts me off the ground.

The wind on the desert
scatters the sand into my blinking eyes.

The wind at the hotel
blows garbage in whirlpool circles around Dorothy’s bed.

It is such a strong wind that
it makes my blood cells wiggle.

I breathe chunky sand.
I eat crunchy sand.
June 21, 2001-Woodstock, New York

13) Driving Towards the Sunset

The road to the Mesas undulates with color.
The sun melts into the San Francisco Peaks,
dances on the Painted Desert.

Spectacular words in a poem can never encapsulate
this explosion of iridescent reds and oranges,
vibrant splashes of yellows and purples that
splatter against a blue, black and white-clouded horizon.

The sunset seems to have a life of its own.
I want to possess this moment of time.
But, it is there for the heart to savor
for only an instant.
April 2, 2001-Hopi Cultural Center, Second Mesa, Arizona

14) Mystic Vista

We sit on the bank of Oak Creek,
cradled by white sycamore roots.
Gabriel plays his flute.

We pass a medicine wheel of stone,
touch Juniper branches
twisted by the vortex,

We climb the Mystic Vista,
where the Hopi used to come
to fast and pray.

A helicopter flies overhead.
The cell phone rings.
A bell sounds behind her ear.

Subtle molecules swim and whirl.
The elders hold me.
The quiet is born.
March 13, 2001-Sedona, Arizona

15) It’s Red Dirt This and Red Dirt That

I have yet to touch or feel
the “spirituality” of Sedona.
self-named energy vortex,
a western movie set,
plopped in the valley of
consecrated cathedrals,
sheared crimson stone.

Green goblins have prostituted landscapes.
Savage developers have embezzled
blood from the rocks,
raped Snoopy’s innocent inner-child,
ravaged spectacular desert horizons
with cloned strip mall mentality.

Magnetic crystalline energy is pilfered.
Electric/telephone wires,
strung like Christmas lights
across scarlet buttes and mesas
surround Oak Creek Canyon,
where eroded red silt floods Dry Creek.

Uptown is a rubber tomahawk.
The storefronts appear unique.
But, within shops,
the non-distinct cigar store Indian,
Boomtown Western motif,
humiliates the natives.

I’ve yet to meet sincere human beings,
locals with smiles,
clerks with good attitudes.
Even t-shirts are dyed
in robbed red dirt.
At night you could be anywhere.
March 13, 2001-Sedona, Arizona

16) A Journey Begins With the First Step Within

I am inspired by my journey
of a thousand steps within.
Beginning with the first step,
my child’s voice awakening.

Nature overwhelms, yet embraces.
In a measureless confrontation of elements,
animated fleecy clouds,
spiky cogs and puffs of light,
illuminate the blinding surface of
emerald bays and indigo lakes.

Gathering pines, silent sentinels standing guard
over the parched parquet of desert floor,
surrounded by brooding sandstone cliffs,
are nourished by a swath of sifted-twisted light.

I immerse in the relentless snare drum pulse
of restless ocean hum,
ascending rush of wings,
into the silver lining of an unblinking sky.

Pristine messengers graze on folded crevices,
over placid foothills of massive purple altars.
Lilting lilac clouds yawn skyward
over the garb of velvet mountain thrones.

The border between lifting earthbound bluffs
and spilling light spectrum of sky is indistinguishable.
The connection of non-selective thoughtlessness
to arbitrary destruction of nature is undeniable.

Returning from my journey
of a thousand steps within,
I surrender to the knowledge
gained by living God’s scheme.
March 21, 2001-Sonoma, California

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 14.11.2009

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