My Witness is the Empty Sky

A memory from my hitchhiking days. Title is qtd from "Some of the Dharma" by Jack Kerouac.

The sun weighs heavy on me
throwing shade behind every standing thing.
These shadows—these birds move like slow
bullets across the pavement. I look down
but they are up. And I am dragging
my shadow across town: over train tracks
and fences; sometimes lost below
overpasses and trees.

And when he lets up, about to die
and there is only shade and barely light,
and birds pass overhead but not below,
I am alone. It’s colder
than before, but not heavy; I shake though
the strain is gone.

That moon is no friendly woman,
and I stumble in her feigned light.
I long to see a passing car that
promises to save me from the
birdless skies that make all kindly shadows
cruel—but there are none.
And I cannot see my feet, but I feel them
buckling beneath my will.

The moon is not heavy on me.
She is only cold.