Due North (draft III)

Driving north in mid-November
even the telephone poles
are wind whipped.

Against an opal sky
coal black flocks retreat.

Particles of science and space
filter through the radio. A clipped
woman's voice explains

star shift across the millenniums.
Due North never changes
while it's markers slowly will.

Without you

this is no
home coming. The twisted
summer boughs are red gold
pyres along the hills.

My bones and these wheels
know the way to empty sidewalks,
empty houses and a boarded up
downtown.

This is North,
just past the wheatless fields,
harvest-stripped of love.

truth must be
just East of here.