I ride my bike into the country

I ride my bike into the country thinking to make an unexpected visit. I pass a couple in the shade of a tan oak sitting in their car beside the road she on her side, he on his but I don’t wonder what they’re there for I stop to rest in the open gate of an empty field with spider webs glistening from clod to clod. The west side of the field is lined with tan oak the side I’m on the road the fence the straw on my right a bobwire fence and wooden posts head out straight towards the fogbanked mountains under the brilliant setting sun

2 September 1974