by Andrew Taylor-Troutman
The Opening
… where the newly open view is good, I can see
is what I was pointing to, what I was saying quietly to Myself — Ross Gay
1
15-501 to I-64 to Highway 421 North —
all familiar to me, a Tarheel for the last five years and my first 23;
so, to break the monotony of this eight-hour drive to Pittsburgh,
I go old school, FM radio, Top 40 station,
and boogie down the road, chuckling at that part of myself complaining
about how come kids these days don’t play their own instruments,
and when did grunge rock become classic?
2
US-52 across the state line — the billboard Virginia is for Lovers.
This state was where I was married and my three kids were born,
and at the rest stop, a toddler plops down on the asphalt, refusing to go any further,
to which my fellow father sighed, “But we’re almost there!”
I whispered, “For the love of God!” as I’ve wanted to say it so many times to my kids.
3
I-77, still driving north, my mind drifts east, along the New River (ironically the oldest in U.S.)
and my previous church named after the Dublin across the pond,
to the babies I’ve baptized in a holy trickle, who are now immersed in childhood,
and the older people I loved, now buried in the old churchyard.
Are any road trips truly solo?
4
After going through a tunnel in West Virginia, Wild and Wonderful,
I made a game of counting the Jesus and strip club billboards,
and the tally was even, until six signs in a row, all for Jesus,
tipped the balance right outside of Craigsville.
“Craig” being the name of my father who, eight years earlier,
drove the same Highway 19 with me on our way to see the Pirates play the Cubs.
In eight more years, what else will be an echo?
5
I went back to the radio:
“Not everything is beautiful in the world, but there is beauty in it.”
Even the banal sounds lovely in the voice of Fiona Ritchie,
host of The Thistle & Shamrock, playing a wee bit of songs from the old country.
Then, a familiar Beatles tune, but not like Sir Paul sang it —
this blackbird flew in Gaelic,
and I, driving on Father’s Day and Juneteenth,
prayed for Lon-dubh in the dead of night and all the broken wings,
as my car flew past fast food joints force feeding the American Dream.
6
Up I-79, the sun setting behind the green hills,
as I cross the Pennsylvania state line,
this land that I love from its bustling downtowns to busted down barns,
these supposedly “united states” that are now so divided and full of hostility.
Yet, for all its faults and complexities, its contradictions and cruelties,
my country is still the bright hope that we shall be like a city on a hill.
I took the North Shore exit under the Fort Pitt tunnel,
which opened to a field of steel with towering lights, all aglow.
The Rev. Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the pastor and head of staff at Chapel in the Pines PC in Chapel Hill, N.C., and a student in the PTS Doctor of Ministry in Creative Writing and Public Theology program. Applications are now being accepted for the next cohort in this program.