Winslow (1977)

/ Daniel Swearingen

“A true story from Friday June 10, 1977”

We drove to Winslow…. Winslow, Arizona, “Taking it Easy” as we motored along. It’s bluer then ether, how can that be? Better light up while we still can, not seventeen or eighteen, just sixteen and so full of Chee, so full of the land. If we were in love, this would be the feeling, this would be the time. There’s Hopi girls slowing down to see a white and a red, slowing down, GD wee! Near Newcomb, we will get high there, before we even reach service road 19B. Old friend, young friend, someone who has always known me, it’s nineteen seventy free. And Jimmy Carter’s holed up in the white house, he with his peanuts, means nothing, on this the Navajo and me agree. Davey and I, can ride in the pickup high, listening to Bob Seger, smoking, our own brand of weed, right now it’s all we want to believe. It could be that we were something, back in third grade that old grade school known as Grace B. And right now we believe in jesus, but that’s just because we are afraid of this open highway, plain scared of what we know America will be. It’s true like prophecy falling, dangerous with the knowledge beyond where we should be.

Tohatchi, has lightning, a thunderstorm that rains, meeting our laughter, joining our carelessness, with something that we need. When you think back Davey, from boot camp, when that ass hat’s screaming at Pendleton, think of me.

I’ll be standing in a pickup, a white kid, scrawny, wearing a blue Hanes T. Sixteen, driving with that Navajo, talking shit, with our hearts on our sleeves. And when we reached Winslow, if we saw love, in nineteen seventy free, for the rest of our lives we would be all we could be. If we were in love, this would be the feeling, this would be the time.

Near the Yellow Horse Trading post on 40 we forgot we were alive, from there on to Winslow we thought we could fly, and sometimes your daddy’s truck did 105, could be we were drunk, more likely we only believed, that Navajo and me. Supposed we in the great all we see, took a laugh at our destiny, and when we arrived in Winslow we were still sixteen. Damn right we were still sixteen! That was the Navajo and me.

We drove to Winslow…. Winslow, Arizona, “Taking it Easy” as we motored along. It’s bluer then ether, how can that be? Better light up while we still can, not seventeen or eighteen, just sixteen and so full of Chee, so full of the land. If we were in love, this would be the feeling, this would be the time. There’s Hopi girls slowing down to see a white and a red, slowing down, GD wee! – 06.09.2016 –  דָּנִיֵּאל

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