Dian Duchin Reed

The Way

You picture the Way as something mystical, but it’s not. It’s Center Street, the street where your house sits, one block away from Main Street. The Way runs parallel to a hillside full of coyote dens and gopher burrows, covered with trees from which crows and hawks and owls peer down at the world.

Many pass along the Way. Unwanted yet undaunted solicitors. Dog walkers, drawn to the large parking lot that lies empty between church meetings. Ramblers and runners and mothers with strollers. You can see them all from the window of your house.

Of course, your neighbors also live along the Way. They notice different things outside their windows, but no matter. Every ant, every squirrel, every skunk in the area follows the Way, along with the sheriffs shining flashlights and the thief who’s ducked into someone’s dark backyard.

You decide that you like it here. The Way is your way. You send off for address labels printed with Your name, on the Way. But before they arrive, you find that you’ve been evicted, you’ve lost it all. You shrug and move on. In your heart you suspect that there’s no place that’s not on the Way.

this towhee
dancing in the leaves
you in feathers