Driving Toward Benevolence

Lauren Camp

All year the shadows and lesser permissions. America

had been weeping disagreement and fragments

of caution. No one had a place to go but unstrung

cities kept our attention. I had to get out to the disorderly

where bats ache to purple. To the minor rebellion

of rigid aspens and direction unruly for miles. Sunlight

pushed by bluff. Turn a wheel toward the wild heart

of geography. The sky had its pulses, its glowering

and bears. I drove a map many miles. It was late summer,

each day a crimson reappearance of earth. The road moved

its horses. Nothing else but loitering ditches and ruts,

ranges of water. A mountain switched to its reflection.

It was easy to be greedy to situate where a great

horned owl could trace everything from the branches:

joy or pain. I had traveled to the end and was left

with the taste of an end, the start of the dark, which was also

a celebration of truth and new beginning.

about the author
Lauren Camp

Lauren Camp

Lauren Camp serves as New Mexico Poet Laureate. She is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024). A former Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park, she has won a Dorset Prize and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award, Big Other Book Award, and Adrienne Rich Award. Her poems have been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, French, and Arabic. Find more at www.laurencamp.com.