Forgotten Ground Regained

Freeway Dawn

This alliterative poem was inspired by my daily commute from the San Fernando Valley to Santa Monica through Topanga Canyon while I was working in Los Angeles, 1997-2001.
Stop-and-go traffic staggers along,bumper-to-bumper past the brink of dawntill the raw gaze of the ragged sun glances off fenders and glares on the hills.
The news-anchor's voice keeps nattering on,like the humming motor or the hissing fan,and with rapid pulse an arresting tone pierces right through each portable cell --
There's a public listing for this private hell.
But under the brush on bright-edged hillswhere pattering feet turn poised by holes,and high up in haze where hawk-shadows wheel, and cloudbanks mirror the colors of dawn,
And even where traffic inches and crawls,another pulse measures patterns revealedin balance of limb, in breath held still, when a moment freezes, moves and is gone
like a sudden deer in the slanting sun.
Copyright © Paul D Deane, 2000
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