The Road After Dark

To you, still out on the night road,

After dark the highway is only as long as the headlights reach, and at the far end of it, of all things, one small window is lit. A poet, setting foot on an open road, once said to it: "You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here, I believe that much unseen is also here." — Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road (1856)

This letter comes from the American South, October 1990, and from just such a road. The envelope is dusty red textured paper, with its title in cream looping motel script; a navy road across empty country is etched beneath it, and the small window glows at the end. In the corner are a sage-green gas receipt, an elegant geometric starburst, and a worn paper key tag.

That is how night roads are: there is more unseen than seen. Perhaps someone behind that window is waiting. Do stop for a while and read this letter slowly; and when you feel like writing, write one to a far-off window of your own.

May there be a lamp ahead

Storm Post Office

October 1990 · The American South