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Going By Car

I never travel without an exploration
But going by car
is to examine the fine landscape
only though gloves or spyglass

It is to be eager at the passages of a great book
whose leaves are barely glimpsed
before turned by a mechanical arm

I must fight the touring disease
that the next bend has more than this one
Hurtling does not cure hurrying
I slow or pull off and step out
like a fat man reaching for wildflowers
his rising belly reaches first
like on a desperate liberty
pierced by a mother’s shriek
The manly, strange, motionless, exhausting earth
whelming all sides
fades, smiles, recedes

It is a session of hours blurred in movement
strains the nether circulation
Present time punctuates
with spilled food and dread of collision

It is much if I watch the birth and death of evening
over the way ahead
much to translate the bright, glib artifice of maps
into smells and stars, a plowman’s wave
realize the immensities on one side
when the map has me at the whip-end of something

To travel by car
is to make an empty promise to return on foot

poem by Edward Wright Haile
Added by Poetry Lover
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