Love & Tolerance on the High Road

When married to a poet, a perfect day begins when a poem started two years ago reaches its final form.

Today is going to be one of those perfect days due to the fact that this gem was on the table this morning as I sat down to drink my coffee.

Michael's new poem grows out of a real encounter we had on a stretch of road near Dixon, New Mexico, where the road briefly opened into something stranger. A moment suspended between fear and grace. What begins as a simple act of human kindness unfolds into meditation on instinct, memory, and the fragile thread that ties strangers together on the same road. One fresh in the communion of sobriety, the other in the depths of addiction.

The stranger becomes a messenger instead of a threat.

"Amore

Amore

It's always amore"

It's a true story, told the only way it could be told,

as a poem about love & tolerance and the mysterious ghosts that we meet along the way.

GHOST ON THE HIGH ROAD NEAR DIXON, NM

The Gift emerged,

rising from a rained-in ditch

after last rites for dead car (not his)

concluded on flatter tires.

I shook the glass bottle of holy dirt,

gathered by my grandmother's ghost a day earlier,

before returning it to pocket. Forever washed

in a blessing of perceived protection.

We measured one another head to toe

like responsible alpha men do, unconsciously of course,

but only to the point where neither one of us

wanted to do anything about it. Even if we needed to.

Following a gesture, not meaningless, nor remembered,

he climbed into the back seat with his backpack,

which now, in my mind, may contain a gun.

His first words, once settled in,

“I've been drinking all day, I've

been alcoholic my whole life, but

the ladies of Dixon will welcome me.”

Inside my head, the conversation starts,

“Look hon, a living dead ghost mumbling from the back seat!”

Out of nowhere, and just then, the hyper-vigilant cortisol kicks in.

Where in the hell did I hide the knife? My wife appears to be moving

out of body, above the trees, surrendering the entire scene.

Descending out of the canyon I spot his destination

while cataloging, indexing, and filing this latest great decision.

“You can drop me anywhere, it doesn't matter.”

Leaning forward now, in between the bucket seats,

the parting word shots of a now somewhat lucid ghost.

Five fingertips pulled into prayer, in an inebriated spitting whisper,

now reaching for my hand and holding it in a grip of holy mist.

“Amore

Amore

It's always amore”

Next village this black cat

attempted to cross our path

with one confident step.

“No fucking way, not today!”

Then, quite wisely, Blackie put on the spiritual brakes.

“There is just too much love on this hwy for that!”

Simply follow the sign, avoid the dip back into Old Ways.

Sorting through the wreckage

I unearth an everlasting lesson:

Always pick up the obvious tool at hand.

Lovingly resist baked-in colonial paranoia.

Embrace it and love it to death.

Let's put it this way,

Amore e Tolleranza

Amor y Tolerancia

Love & Tolerance

© 2024 MARCH – 2026 FEB MICHAEL CARTRIGHT