Madison County
Driving north through northwestern Missouri,
nixing opportunities to bringing verity
and variety to the road,
passing by Haun’s Mill Massacre Site,
the homes of Outlaw Jesse James,
President Harry Truman and much more.
Continuing our I-35 northern route,
leaving parts of the Ozarks,
entering more rolling countryside.
Peppered with stops every two hours,
only to wonder what history lies down
the many intersecting roads.
The terrain changes little entering Iowa,
calculating our mileage on to Des Moines.
Feeding off of passing signage to satisfy
a pang of a growing hunger for information,
one sign leaps at me – Madison County.
Can I pass up photographing the “Bridges of…?”
Most people we know would be exciting
to see the birthplace of John Wayne.
Making our first “tourist” exit,
the Winterset exit holds more for us.
Reflecting on the lonely rural countryside,
sharing the feelings of an Italian war bride.
The lonely Francesca chooses to act
like a woman must to spend four days
with the “… magnificent animal that is you.”
Knowing she could not live with the “whispers”
generating thoughts that would turn her into
a woman, Robert had not come to love.
“A man’s gotta do, what a man’s gotta do,”
is Wayne’s classic statement of man’s
moral imperative of making the choice
of acting, or failing before one’s conscience.
The measure of our soul, calculated from
the profound truths percolating to life’s surface.
Now it was my turn to act
playing photographer Robert Kincaid,
photographing covered bridges minus Francesca.
As a student of both love and photography,
less of the “Duke,” the combination did
gendered agreement to our first detour.
kenne
