Ode to Traffic (a poem)
Ode to Traffic
like the bloom of
the morning glories
you appear in front of me on the horizon
between the freeway lines
like the caterpillar
crawls up the precipice of
stones in the sun and
behind me
snake by me sometimes
tall as buildings
slipping through
shipping lanes
with colorful designs
that sail on
your sideways
steel doors and the tires
that fathom over the cement
moving under me
with the music on the radio
and the foghorn sun
ebbing up the horizontal
mountains.
You are a magnificent city
to me the travelers
passing the guardrails
that reef the roadside
in little lights that shine
under glass obscure
zephyr past me
and the sirens call
flickering their lights and seep up
in the view behind me
the lanes slipping apart
like some maroon ocean
and the silver and green
and blue and red cars
wave back into
until we are all jettison forward
at the same speed
and the moving traffic
is like a calm
sea swell
My morning traffic
that familiar city
I visit after a night’s wane
and before dawn’s crest
vehicles surf towards
a shore that is constantly
fleeting
to the lighthouse sunrise
my fellow travelers
who I sometimes see
in the mirror
in the dawn
and the cascade
of the caravan
travelers that
ship by me in their
tiny cars
some of them fixing their
hair in mirrors
watering by me
like the salmon slipping upstream
my fellow citizens
heading to their
destinations
in my morning traffic a little
moving always on a map
navigating the freeway
to the shores with names
written on the
signs by the roadside
always familiar strangers to me
who I greet silently
and miss
when I have reached
my own still waters
and left the reefs
behind me
my motor foaming
to a standstill
the air quiet
as a shelf of shells.
