I long to be free from freeways,
no-smile miles of disquieting drivenness,
lane-brain impatience, noise.

Heracleum maximum effloresce defiantly,
despite all this. Prove exception to my mind’s
narrow on-ramp of disquiet. Already, American
cow-parsnip’s lacy white umbels, twined purple
with Pacific pea, grow more like garden
than meridian strip alongside the highway.

Sixty-eight thousand
paved freeway miles in America.
Easy to race past what is—
not see or be where I am,
who I am.

Little did I know,
I was looking for beauty, a sign.
This exit leading to where
barriers bloom bouquets,
dividers unite.