On a ribbon of road

DATELINE: Trinity Sunday, Iowa Highway 20, heading west

Just because Montana is big doesn’t mean it merits sole bragging rights to big sky. I’ve been through Montana several times. They’ve got nothing on us; there’s big sky here, too. And that sky can hold forth quite a show.

There’s a shade of carnelian in a cloudless sky that acts like a hypnotic. Have you seen it? The strictly factual say that carnelian doesn’t exist. They say it’s chalcedony, but where’s the poetry in that? Give me carnelian for a moment or two.

Sometimes the expanse overhead is cornflower served with a stunning side of cumulonimbus. Hex code #6495ED, if you insist.

Or periwinkle. Have you seen a periwinkle sky? It’s not my favorite shade, but it’s not up to us, is it? The palette shifts from day to day. No matter what the hue, it’s quite a show.

Today, the sky is not showing off so much as inviting study in a wet-on-wet watercolor wash of smoke and steel, stone and ash.

If I could only paint like that. If I had only learned to control the flow of paint on paper or understand when to let the paint go where it wanted.

There are moments—into the mystic--when the soul is content, where nothing has happened or changed, except the inner landscape. It’s glorious spring and I’ve no wish for a river to skate away on. There’s only this ribbon of road stretching away from those I love, heading west.

Oh, those I love. One child ran to be held and clutched on tightly. One child giggled when I said, “Bless you,” over and over. One child was baptized in a white princess dress, all smiles until the priest poured water in her eyes.

Bless the children.

A baby robin got caught in the window well where I stayed. Its father perched nervously above, morsels for the little one dangled from his beak. Mr. Robin tried to land in the window well, but it was a tricky operation, and he aborted the mission. I opened the window. Perhaps I could flush out the baby somehow.

At that moment, the little bird shifted its plump, dappled body and lifted up and out. Like Dorothy in Oz, it had the power to leave all along.

This is not a story with a moral. It’s just a way of paying attention.

The miles roll on. I don’t know the song that mentions California as I drive and think on all these things. The sound of the chords mixes with the wash of the sky and the stunning green fields.

It’s a portrait of contentment, the soul at rest.

Mine is a small life spent shuttling many miles on a highway that normally numbs my brain. Today this life feels as big as an Iowa sky over a ribbon of road, heading home.