I Shook Hands

with the weather

this summer evening

hoping to get

on its good side-

a cop had left me

on the highway

60 miles past Hearst

Ontario 6 pm this

August day-

where mosquitoes

were boss.

My thumbing across

Canada the plan

and from Rouyn to

here took six hours on

the first day-

desperate from bugs

without a ride

in sight until finally

a vehicle in the

darkness of night-

it  was a farmer

who stopped

& let me stay at his

farm until

the next daylight.