Erwin Baker

With red Indiana clay between your toes

and an Indian motorcycle red beneath you,

that tightly-wound tether in the American

male snapped.

Your name to me is all the big journeys, 

the five million miles they say you rode

before the Interstate tied up the nation

in frilly bows; cannonball speed, sure,

but something much more American:

here's to you,

for all those years you just rode and rode,

alone with yourself and whatever 

gods swirl in the wind

on unwatched roads.