This morning I departed St. Paul, Minnesota for Davenport, Iowa. As a matter of course I drove the 300 odd miles to my next gig. Some days are simply spent driving; other days are mesmerizing and enchanted. What tipped it off this time was noticing a sign along side I-35 that read, "Avenue of Saints". I thought, "What could that mean?" The signs disappeared when I turned off the interstate onto smaller roads across Iowa to join I-380 near Waterloo and Cedar Falls. I thought I had left the Avenue until onto I-380 there it was again, another one of those blue signs that told me I had rejoined the Avenue of Saints.

All along the way I had been writing, noting things I saw and whatever crossed my mind. I had been saving up specific images for the past several months: mileposts as rosaries, and sunflowers as monks worshiping. I have spent many nights sleeping in truck stops lately, and have been searching for succinct words to relate that experience. I have waited most of my life to witness a Bald Eagle, until last year when I saw one for the first time. This tour I saw several in Idaho, Washington, and lastly in Illinois flying above the Mississippi River. These images needed an outlet.

In Davenport that evening singing for the Clifton Crest House Concert Series I asked the locals what all this was about the Avenue of Saints. They informed me that the Avenue is intended to become an interstate corridor between St. Paul and St. Louis. In fact, its completion is in doubt because there are many farmers who are resisting selling their land to make way for that road. Looking at the map it's apparent to me that the most direct route between the Saints is the Mississippi River…. tell that to a trucking company, though.

What amazes me is that someone at the Department of Transportation had the poetic insight to give the unrealized corridor such an evocative name. Before I was thinking, who were these Saints? When did they walk here? What purpose did they have? Now it reads like a sales pitch to lay down more concrete, and construct more convenience stores. Nevertheless, I choose to hold onto the idea with more beauty to it: who are these Saints? To me that link of chain is the farmers who are holding out, and preventing the completion of that very road.

As I travel from coast to coast there are two constants: The farms and the railroads. Barns are everywhere, along every rural road from Virginia to California, from Canada to Mexico. This used to be an agricultural economy. Now, most of what I see are beautiful, abandoned barns, broken windmills, and empty homesteads. Apparently it doesn't pay to farm and feed people. Something indefinable must keep the farmers on their land and planting crops despite buyout offers to give it up. Offers that come from either the government or other such corporations. I think there is a stubborn and underlying unwillingness to forsake the elemental, beautiful, and constant landscape, even for money and greater security. I feel it too. This unnamable thing is what keeps me touring, connected to the land, and constantly amazed.

This past tour I saw a huge amount of Eastern Oregon and Washington, Idaho and Montana. For how immense and glorious the West is I often feel swallowed by it. I feel at its mercy and humbled by its indifference. I always relax a bit when I get near the Mississippi. It's as if the rolling hills are open to dialogue. I could walk a long way and not go hungry. The famous Midwest friendliness wouldn't let me down.

I'll leave you here with what made its way into song.
Come to a gig some time and have a listen.
Peace,
Dana

The Avenue Of Saints
I slept 'neath the light of the sodium moon
Parked between trailers and the interstates boom

My pallet, the bosom of my old sleeping bag
I shake off the cold in my four-wheel nag

      The clouds are lifted, the curtain is drawn
      My caravan's waiting, the morning has come

I drive from St. Paul into Iowa
Tomorrow through Illinois to sing in Indiana

The milepost markers make a fine rosary
Down the Avenue of Saints, past the town of Albert Lee

      Past factory outlets and budget motels
      To lonely old farms where the land's up to sell

You can lay down four lanes and build up a mall
But I keep coming back in spite of it all

Cause there will still be places that you'll never change
A horizon so wide, a home on the range

      The only Saints I seen on this avenue
      Are planting the acres and harvesting food

Silos like Buddhas near Indian mounds
Sunflower monks watch the world turning round

Just how many more roads you need between St. Paul and St. Louis?
When bald eagles fly above the Mississippi

      Oh Avenue of Saints, I won't grudge you now
      A dirt road you ain't, but I'm with you anyhow

I slept through the night 'neath the sodium moon
On the Avenue of Saints by the interstates boom

By Dana Robinson
March 9th 2001 I-35 Minnesota/Iowa