The Tour: stretching off into the distance: in front: behind: behold: the empty highway. The lonliness of a long distance runner: the pack: long dispersed: long collapsed and shattered into the water stops long miles ago: when the road was busy: when headlights were clicked up and down in the darkness: and the distances themselves were imperial. But out here on the eastern Karoo the Old Girl eats kilometres, and there is no hint of light where the world breaks with the sky: no warming signs of life; no mercury vapour beacons: nothing to count but the distance itself: the crackle of the broken radio speaker: the rattle of the ball joints over a rough patch: the interruption of a thought: the zen of the drive: the almost glint of the almost fallen sun catching insulators on the power lines: the steady tick and hum of the German motor.
There are probably other things moving out here, but I can't see them. Driving away from the sun: I could tur off the motor in the middle of the road: and why not: there: the silence: a faint wind shaking the dry weeks: have a leak on the still hot pavement: watch lightning trace the sky half an hour away in: the distance: some big strike: a bit like tracers: but random: glinting. Was it God's left hand? Was it something darker, rolling the bones, coming up craps all the same? The music has been like that, too. Connected to places between here: and there: and not well grounded. And why should it be? It's about 119 km until the next town that might have a petrol station, so I've got my eye on the gauges.
There has been drought, and for all of the miles of fences: just a few springbok: casing the emptiness: do they look for the ghosts of the sheep, or or of the cattle: or of the guys who strung all of this wire? And where are they now? Living or dead? In what place do they drink, and toss their Castles to the ground? I wonder if the main difference between them and me is that they are no longer here? And I am. Here: but not there. Not where you are. It take a lot of hectares to support even a small farm: and it takes a lot of bums in seats to support even a small tour. Drought helps you to see that, while thirst pushes such truth to the back of one's mind. Sometimes that's a lot of distance. Enough to stretch another tour through, enough room to find enough excuses until the main bearing fails, or until it rains once more.
The Darker Roads National Steel Blues Tour will pick up in Glasgow in early August, with festival and club dates to follow in Northern Ireland and Ireland. Check the sidebar for dates and locations.
