As the river flow slows tumbling

against itself, surge of tires on pavement

    subsides, allows

cricket in roadside tree

songs to slip into open spaces.

 

Travelers learn fellow plates

and habits hidden behind glass

    of solitary drivers.

Faces tilted and angry, drawn

down by surrendered minutes.

 

Music over flows from slow

passing windows.  Stoic travelers

    sometimes welcome

mergers at the mercy

of the tidal ebb and flow.

 

Left look over the overpass,

light haze hangs among suburban

    green sycamore beyond

dark green pines and two

story homes, a church steeple and-

 

Rushing to the silent warning

of a light truck; a torn

    second flutters,

pulled by the vacuum

of moving masses.

 

What tragic flaw has damned the riders

this afternoon?  Fictions fill

    my pilot house.

Turning with the bend around great

parkway trees, golden illuminated

        dirt answers:

 

Driving west blinds with stop-and-go grace.

 

***