My son Nathaniel his wife Krista
Celebrated their tenth anniversary
With a trip to Turkey and Greece
Their choices unnerved me each
Country in the midst of some tumult
Thankfully they’re long past listening
To geezers who fret over every little thing
Young enough to enjoy the freedom
Of invulnerability and to be truthful
When I was young had more money than brains
I traveled too not so daringly
Paris London Madrid a capitals tour
Not a capital idea only for the naive
First-time to Europe American another
In a long line of parochial bumpkins
Stunned to see that people existed in
Other parts of the world with customs
Languages cultures all their own
Not that we hadn’t read or seen movies
Known all these facts in our heads
Standing among them was the clincher
My mom as a youngster didn’t travel
So far as to go out of the county
Thought people in California had pointed ears
Different in some remarkable way
She too had seen movies talkies even
She too knew in her head
The true state of things
Niagara Falls for her honeymoon
Didn’t break her fantasy visiting
Her brother in Independence
Seeing some friends in Ashtabula
Marked the bounds of her young adulthood
My dad in his twenty-fifth year of
Working for the same company
Took the family by car on his long awaited
Long vacation through the great
Natural wonders of the American west
To visit his brother Tony a naval retiree
Japanese war prisoner then an aircraft
Worker in San Diego confirmed alcoholic
Married to an alcoholic with a teen
Daughter who may have seen enough
In her life to stay away from drink
For my mom the trip required her to sustain
Long periods of motion without movement
She clung white knuckled to the door’s
Arm rest braced her left arm on the dash
She had never wanted to travel much less
Travel at seventy-five miles an hour down
Long straight highways with competition
From interstate trucking tension rising
As they grew from black dots on her
Horizon to monstrous iron boxes as we
Neared one could see how they swayed
As much as a foot from side to side
Hear the noise of their wheels
Motors as we gunning it
Passed the behemoths at eighty
She on the passenger side of our
Sixty-one Comet many times over
Imagined our car smashing into the truck
When she calmed down enough
To look ahead alas another dot appeared
How she survived crossing many state lines
Much less the first was a mystery to me
What could she do get out walk back
Several times she spoke up let’s not take
The scenic route I’ve had enough scenic
I just want to get this done and get home
She later confessed having difficulty
On any toilet not her own to our surprise
She did not expire she made it back
Never once spoke warmly of the adventure
Not of places nor people
Even now I feel so sorry for her
Locked in a cage I think
Of her own making
Fearful all through life
I suffer a bit of the same
Being bone of her bone
But hopefully I didn’t
Pass it on
c. J.S.Manista, 2015
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