Red Road II

Broken highway, fading red,

yellow stripe dimmed by time.

Asphalt plates shifting, heaving, cracking.

Once the modern conduit

between pioneer towns,

a marvel in my own time,

now abandoned as a new highway

hums busily in the distance.

Now only scofflaws, downed gates,

bullet riddled signs, shattered glass.

A level walk, not dusty,

saving me from changing clothes,

sad and forlorn for all that.

Yet nature is here, encroaching

grass and trees, grasshoppers

flying from my feet, gullies

and eroded banks, a soft wind

glazing the heat.

Quiet and peaceful

in its desolation.

Gunfire in the distance,

a post-apocalyptic vision,

grinding engines where they

shouldn’t be, intrusive.

All I need is a camera and crew,

actors I suppose, a simple plot,

scofflaws turned outlaws,

the red road broken

not from benign neglect,

but from folly.

And me red road walking,

not skulking,

secure in my

road warrior dream.

Juniper tree growing from red asphalt,

a sign of the future and past,

A road decayed by time,

Something lost,

turned by imagination

into something new.