A PRAYER FOR THE HITCHHIKER


May your rides be long
your belly full and
your jail cell dry

May you always keep
good company and
your wallet as well

May you find work
when you need it and
may it never find you
when you don't

May no man ever
lay hands upon you
unless it's to
shake your hand

May they only run
you out of towns
worth leaving

May you prowl with
the lives of nine cats
you'll need them all

for everywhere you go
the townsfolk will hide
behind locked doors which
they carry about on their
sturdy townsfolk backs

and they'll curse you
for your wicked freedom
chase you with torches
stones and municipal codes
cast you from their midst

to seek new adventures
in hidden sacred places
while secretly they dream
of lives without doors

So may the Great
Golden Vagabond
roaring by in His
Shiny Sky Cadillac

set below the
road behind you
rise above the
road before you
and shine upon the
road at your feet

By Our Sweet Lady
of Silver Shadows
may you never lose
your way in moonlight

and may bandits and
sheriffs alike find
only shadows where once
you stood and prayed

May you stretch out
your hand in the silent
hitchhiker's prayer
to hook an angel
on rubber wings

flying high to
Heaven's best rest stop
where truckers are all
knights of the big rig
and waitresses slip you
an extra piece of pie

May the Riders of the Sky
galloping across the Zodiac
glistening with sweat
spur and cosmic dust

lead you a little astray
for when proper drifters
lose their way they
take up a brand new trail
and a new tale to tell

(but never so tall that
your feet lose the ground
nor so small that your
listeners can't lose
their heads in the clouds)

When you have torn through
enough out-of-date road maps
dined on enough truck stop fries
fallen headlong into enough loves
awakened in enough strange beds
and bunks and open fields to
the songs of strange dawns

when you have crossed
enough lost horizons
run around in enough circles
proving to yourself that
no the world isn't flat

or disproving it by falling
off the edge a time or two
drinking with sea monsters
dancing with mermaids and
mermen and giant sea horses

when at lazy long last you have
beat enough miles to make your
feet famously flat and decided
this is the day to call it a day

when you have finally raised
your master thumb to finish
painting the eventide canvas
with your own starry night story

traced the constellation
that bears your secret name
known only to those who have
already passed this way

then may the North Star
with every Heavenly road sign
all the lonely lost cowboys
riding the breaths of four winds

and Gods of weather and wing
whispering answers to
the hitchhiker's prayer
guide your way back home

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This poem is from On Pagan Roads Copyright © 2004 David Arv Bragi