Gravel Roads, Gullywashers, and What Comes Next

Your opening stanza immediately establishes tone and cadence, a visual image and potent emotional vulnerability. That is wonderfully struck. It unfolds that initial image to the drive and the feeling of the journey together. This reminds me in emotional presence of something I wrote years ago called This Soulless Metropolis. Beautiful work.

Thank you so much. Driving is a recurring theme for me, whether it's from behind the wheel or riding in the seat beside. So many poems have started writing themselves in my head while I'm in a car.

I'm so pleased you enjoyed this one, and I will go soon to read This Soulless Metropolis. Thank you, as always.

Dear PS,

I appreciated this poem and the idea of being able to travel, literally as well as metaphorically with someone along life’s unexpected bumpy and twisty roads. It can be jarring when you hit a pothole but it’s still nice to have that someone copiloting. I’m reminded to take all that into consideration while I read your poem. Really lovely. H🌷

Thank you, Honoria, it's an honor, and that's not meant to be as cutesy as I just realized it sounds, but I'm leaving it. I think because I've spent so much time in cars on road trips, with different people, within different relationships, as well as on my own, it's such an easy and apt metaphor for me. There are always different road hazards, different challenges, and it can test you and connect you.

It's nice to have a copilot if they know how to read a map or run the navigation properly, or if they're someone you don't mind getting a bit lost with.

I'm rambling. Thank you so much for your comment, I'm glad this spoke to you in any way at all, and I always welcome your thoughts. :-)

This was a pleasant read. Enjoyed how you intertwined a long drive with a relationship's journey.

Thank you. It's a metaphor I probably overuse, but it works for me :-)

Glad you enjoyed it.

Hey there, ps  
This wonderful piece has been running through my thoughts all day today.... "stopping the cyclones in my mind"... what an effing line that is!!  You capture and regale such a vivid experience, that I can't help but be drawn in and completely taken. From start to stop and each line in between.  

I'm all about your terrific metaphor and the actual tangible truth that could exist in your poem, too. I very much enjoy being behind the wheel myself or as 'navigator.' I feel an escape when taking long drives or extended road trips that sort of help to cleanse a soul, so this piece resonates deeply with my own sense of freedom and the deep self care those excursions can sometimes provide. I feel that it's also bonding and hugely cathartic hitting the road with a soul companion, letting the drive roll by while the music plays allowing the sight, sounds and smells to become a focus.... with the right person, that is .. lol. Oftentimes the road can rhythmically add to some of the best stimulating conversations.... I just really loved how you hearkened me back to those feelings....

The metaphor, highlighting the possibility of precarious directions and pitfalls as well as the struggle navigating the drive towards something truly wonderful within a relationship, is enormously strong and truly consequential.
I relishes an opportunity to enjoy your writing in multiple ways; it's just awesome, imo.

Thanks for allowing the ramble.... lol.  
-'ღ´-

*I wrote a silly little piece awhile ago about driving that I was asked by a buddy here who's been gone now for awhile, if it would be ok with me if he recording it, I didn't know him very well, but he was incredibly kind and very intuitive.... so of course, I said sure, so he did. I think it came out pretty interesting and way different that I ever imagined it sounding... but that's also what can happen in life and in drives, too. ... things going one way when you expected differently!  

Just for shits and giggles, here you go...hahaha.  

https://deepundergroundpoetry.com/poems/412782-drive/