San Diego Freeway

[cfgorman]

Here is a poem I wrote after a long weekend of driving.

San Diego Freeway

Washed gray and oily black macadam,
violent skid-marks and chaotic calico smears
randomly suggest mayhem,
haunting blunt abutments, steel rails,
a patina of a grimy knowledge
the vision of a hopeful generation broods.

Driving this stretch every month is a pilgrimage,
pockmarks and indented stitches
a focused quest to connect two dreams.
Jockeying for position we find our slots and fill them
while foggy snug in our glass crucibles
amidst this mercenary’s gang-way
we are pricked by break-lights and signals
we slow, to a stop, in oneness of purpose,
but crawl ahead again, to speed,
repeating this dogmatic liturgy,

I hold-on to the steering wheel and
stare through the windshield
gray tarmac spools under us
thrusting us with its turbulent reminders
of secret imperfections, persistent dreams.

Mine is to hold-fast, steady, straight,
with dotted lines and grooves
gliding into throats of promising interchanges
sweeping us away in new directions,
163 then 805, then 5, 405, 101, and 33,
a litany of ordered choices, toward homes not my own.

But I do so dutifully, obedient to the promise of safe passage
from dream to dream.
I know that time is memories promised
to those at both ends of this road, as
we continue our measured count, north and south,
through these hardened veins
counting-off the miles like a ticking metronome.