Featured Poet of December 

    This month's featured poet is Misty Page, with her poem "Riding in the Backseat." Misty Page is a creative and hardworking writer. She graduated from Mitchell Community College in Statesville, North Carolina, and works as an office manager for her father's company. She has been featured in Black Petals online magazine for her short stories "The Demon" and "A Game of Chess." Now she continues to spread her writing career and to share her thoughts with anyone she meets! _____________________________________________________________________________________

Riding in the Backseat

By Misty Page

If I was born in Hannibal’s time I would have gone with him across the mountains.

To see the elephants and the precipice. I would have traveled anywhere, back then.

If I was twenty-one when the gold rush hit, I would have traveled west on a train.

I’d steal a horse in the Wild West just to catch the sun. I’d go on in the rain.

If now was the nineties, I’d back-pack Europe, I’d go off for India as well.

If I was a savage unknown islander I’d take my bamboo raft to go tell.

I would go explore and adventure. Wanting to go, just to see, I’d go on like so.

Because that’s what I do. I can’t live unless I write and I can’t live unless I go.

I have to know the touch of the cannon’s skin at Fort Sumpter. I have to go see.

I want to walk along the cliffs of the canyons in Texas. It’s vital for me.

To hear the wild bores scatter suddenly out in the place with dry head and loose sand.

I yearn oh so much to know the name of that place and the character of that land.

I want to run with the quick racing wind. I want to know the sea and ride the waves.

I know Colorado’s frosted mountain peaks beside the road – and what’s these things called raves?

With grueling gators and a snap to the men’s step there’s a place called Louisiana at Magic’s hand.

I go. Because I have always known some places you have to see to understand.

There’s a point the maps become more than lines.

They become places when you’ve seen the road signs.

You won’t know until you go and see. The caverns, the memories and the mines.

Watch a tornado tear apart a road. Feel soft, faint earthquakes. Go see the shorelines.

Come to know a place where the crickets chirp. Then go to the great places where there are none.

There will come a time you see the Great Lakes and you will get what great means. And yes, you will hun.

There will come time you’ll see the real road sign of Route 66. And that’s when you know.

You won’t know it a moment before then, but you’ll know. You will know it is so.

When you get up and go you’ll look back at how little you knew a long time ago.

I want to see the edge of Earth. To feel the water sliding off into night.

To see the hanging ones in the horrible place surrounded by darkness and fright.

To know every corner of this Earth and all its mysteries and what it might mean.

I’ve been up, down, north and south and so far, you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen.

I have ridden in the backseat of my own car for most of this trip as I went.

I gave value and I traveled with respect and I bout everything and paid no rent.

I always watch out the window at cars. I watch mountains rise and then subside.

Playing rock watching zooming city lights. So it seems I’m just along for the ride.

I was humming along in my favorite place, the backseat. Aunt Jen was driving.

I was watching a place called Illinois. She was thinking I’d be more lively.

Giggling and chatting as I do around the table. But I was so still.

I was quiet with wide eyes pressed on the glass trying to get the prairie state’s feel.

I loved how flat it was. I was smiling and screeching when I saw the windmill.

I could see everything and I like that. For me, knowing new things is a big deal.

Aunt Jen’s state has quite a lot of corn. Corn all over and lots of silos too.

I think they put the corn stalks in silos. At least I think that’s what they do.

Anywhere there is a somewhere is a good place to go. So go if you can.

See the culture  of other great lands. Learn the language so you can understand.

No place is any better than any other place. It’s just a place to keep your night.

Touch the relics and see the monuments to know which claims were right.

And remember home as far as you roam and where ever you go, do go back there.

Where family gathers around the fire. Where the rules are cute, funny and fair.

But go everywhere and do everything or else don’t stay in one place.

You don’t have enough time in your life to go on without making tracks in this race.

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