Midwestern Return

With the windows up it’s so quiet
The dead and I can only hear the engine hum
The AC pump purring its summer magic
Those headlights – back then – seemed to light
Only ephemeral insects crisscrossing my dim path
In what could easily be some foreign land
But I reminded myself I was on American soil
Just, I would discover, not with the same feel
As that I grew up barefoot running on back home
So dusty here, old and beaten down, I found
A fine powder I could kick around with my toe
And as the city crawled into view, my chosen path filled me
With the optimism world explorers must have felt
Circumnavigating the earth to end up home where they began