Lost in Translation

(woot for forced movie references, I'm artsy). So here's a poem that is much more substantive and less goofy. It's a road trip poem. I'm not sure if how I feel about it, so you should give me some feedback.

The sky was clear.
The night was cold.
The stars were bright.

I drove way out to the desert
set up camp in the dark
listening to a family coyotes
hidden in the hills.

To not have a chat with God
seemed silly to me.

I scrambled up to the top of a big rock
lied down on my back
stared up at the stars.

The wind was cold up there,
made my eyes water
but I stayed up there.

Wrapped in my Seahawk blanket
I wondered what to say.

I felt like it should be a special conversation,
1200 miles from home
in the middle of the desert
by myself--seemed like the place God tells people things.

I knew he said things.
I didn't know what he said or
what language he spoke,
but I decided I would listen anyways.

I stayed up on that rock and waited.
There were stars everywhere;
every conceivable place in the sky
there was a star.

They were all doing their thing.
I wondered what it would look like
if they were different,
if God ever made revisions.

It probably wouldn't matter
much
where they went.

Their positions probably
weren't as important
as what they were doing:

being bright
sitting up there
night after night
just doing their thing.

It got down to freezing that night.
I got real cold, climbed down
curled up shivering in my sleeping bag.

The next day I had a head-ache.
I sat on the hood of my car,
watching the sun rise through
the branches of Joshua trees
trying to translate.