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The Fourth River

A Journal of Nature and Place-based Writing Published by the Chatham University MFA Program
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Photo by Mary Beth Ely

Alone With America

December 4, 2024

by William Heath

 

Every car commercial on TV

features its product kicking up dust

as it veers off the paved road

to violate a wilderness area,

causing irreparable harm 

to one ecosystem or another.  


That’s 

what sells: manly men and risk-

taking empowered women 

venturing into uncharted territory 

to play at being pioneers off

the beaten track, charge up

mountains, from vertiginous peaks

gaze out at the setting sun.


Cars are not for commuting,

picking up groceries, taking kids 

to soccer games, driving safely 

on highways. It’s the alone 

with America fantasy, free 

to do what the heart desires,

no restrictions, no consequences.  


We can be anything we want to be, 

every car a gas-guzzling Hummer, 

who cares whose fragile habitat 

our radial tires destroy, we are 

the world, we are the children. 



William Heath has published four poetry books: The Walking Man, Steel Valley Elegy, Going Places, and Alms for Oblivion; three chapbooks: Night Moves in Ohio, Leaving Seville, and Inventing the Americas; three novels: The Children Bob Moses Led (winner of the Hackney Award), Devil Dancer, and Blacksnake's Path; a work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest (winner of two Spur Awards and the Oliver Hazard Perry Award); and a collection of interviews, Conversations with Robert Stone. He lives in Annapolis. visit: www.williamheathbooks.com

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