Just Over the Trees

The front yard of the farm where I played as a child faced Highway 53, A rural road with nothing on the other side but a small creek and trees I often imagined what was on the other side of those trees, and the prevailing theory for some time was that it was France. I could hear a distant hum that alternately lowered and lightened in tone And learned only later it was from semitrucks and cars traveling the interstate road I-95 was all that was beyond the woods, I’d later find Which was disappointing at first, but would again my excitement ignite When my family took to it with everything we had In a handmade trailer, Datsun, and Econoline van To a place where we would have neighbors and friends in walking distance, which seemed to me almost as foreign as France. But though the interstate has hosted many captivating tales of its own I’d learn The daydream that France was on the other side is what I prefer. It was more fun to think that the distant but indistinguishable sounds were what France sounds like from where I am now And that when I get older all I’ll have to do is walk through the forest to hear it more clearly and see the world beyond this land of dogs, cats, and cows. Yes, in short time I learned it wasn’t true. But I still find myself amused That there was a time when something so close and common seemed so exotic and foreign And a place so far away seemed as simple to find as a walk to be taken through the forest just as soon as I could cross the highway without getting spanked for it.