Highway Scenery
On Having Places to Be and What It Is to Be
Younger me often looked out
the window of a Volvo station-wagon
well past its years
beaten and broken
as it chugged along numerous American highways
where trees and grass and crops and
life itself
littered themselves aside the road
each with no place to be
and just as mere scenery.
Younger me often looked out
the window of a Volvo station-wagon
questioning if
the trees and grass and crops and
life itself
knew its place
knew it was sitting at the side of a road
as scenery
while vehicles of transportation dashed by
“each with places to be, of course”
surely would have said younger me
Older me is still a young me
but young me was even younger
and older me stood by the highway the other day
and watched the vehicles ride the road
with their places to be
and wondered
“am I scenery?”
as I have no place to be.
Yet I must wonder
as the trees and grass and crops and
life itself
looks upon the speeding cars
I must wonder if they saw younger me
through the window of a Volvo station-wagon
If they would have said to me
“Where do you think that you must be?”
As I faded away from them and became
their scenery.
