The Breeze and Complianace...

The hot spot on the ball of my right foot had evolved into an irritated blister as I paced myself down the shoulder of the flat plain. I stopped and removed my pack and placed it in the weeds taking caution for the certain bug or spider. My back chilled as the breeze intruded on the sweat spot on my back where my pack had been all morning. I squatted and sat down atop my pack and stretched my legs out in front of me. My knees ached for want of rest and I delightfully folded.

The small transistor radio I carried with me was starting to pick up on a sweet folk station from a nearby town. I set it on the ground in front of me and listened attentively as Woodie Guthrie sang to me.
"There's more pretty gals than one,
there's more pretty gals than one.
Every town I ramble 'round
there's more pretty gals than one."

A breeze stirred again and a handful of roadside dust powdered me and got in my eyes and nose. I pulled my soiled bandanna from around my neck and removing my cap wiped the sweat from my hair and forehead, the wetness reused to remove the grime from my face.

I had about two handfuls of banana chips left in a paper sack and I ate a quarter of them, gratefully, and re-stowed them in the pack's outside pocked. A radio spot commercial for soap made me smile. The horizon was wild and the air turned moist and honeyed. Moments past and the sky discharged deep rumbles and growls. I turned my head up and closing my eyes smelled in deeply. I smiled again.

The rain will greet me and the blister on my foot will at some point no doubt split open - but I will continue. The horizon ahead implores us to accept the breeze at our backs and I will comply.

The small-town radio station started to melt away as the sky blackened. Robert Zimmerman asked simply:

"Let me sleep in your meadows with the green grassy leaves
Let me walk down the highway with my brother in peace.
Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground."