Standin' on the Corner

I was takin’ it easy.
Road trippin’ from Phoenix to Holbrook,
through Sedona and Flagstaff and on.
I stopped at Meteor Crater to consider
the timeless timeliness of existence.
A little further down the road
AAA boasted a monument to the Eagles’ song.
"Standin’ on the Corner" in Winslow, Arizona -
a park, travel museum and tribute, born in 1999.
I’ve never really been an Eagles fan,
but I had to stop and see.
The corner park was all fenced off
and the museum reduced to rubble,
the former mural just a fragile façade.
The scene became a depressing reminder
of all of the reasons that I can’t just take it easy.

About the Poem

While my husband and I were visiting family in Arizona in May 2005, we took a short road trip from Phoenix to Holbrook to see the Painted Desert. We stopped at several tourist attractions on the way and were rather eager to stop at a site in Winslow, AZ commemorating the well-known Eagles’ song. Unfortunately, when we arrived, we discovered that the roadside attraction had burnt to the ground. It was a very depressing scene, especially since the town had rallied together to create the memorial, probably in the hope that it would draw tourists and revenue money, which they appeared to desperately need.