The Plan Was To Take Route 66
plans change
I took myself for a drive today. I had a plan, a destination in mind. I came to the split in the highway and my intuition said “Guthrie.” This destination felt different inside than the plan I originally had. I felt my solar plexus. I turned off Maps. I went.
I hit construction while finding new roads. I smiled and tapped to my music as I sat at red lights in the distance, squished between impatience and hazard cones. I kept driving. I kept listening to my gut. I followed 77 North as far as I could. Along the way, I had to double, triple back sometimes because roads were closed and dead ends are a thing. I kept driving. I kept listening to my intuition.
I came to a crossroad after passing fields of hay and one home that got me. The racing barrels were ready in the arena next to a pumpjack and a doublewide. The moment I stopped at the +, I knew, go right. I had managed to take Broadway to Highway 33. My knowing was right and so was the turn, but I only took it after verifying with Maps that it was the right way to go. I ended up circling the Masonic Lodge. I knew it was there before I got there. Past life? Who knows.
I took a different path home. I ended up on a red dirt gravel road. My Lil’ Priestess was nervous about our seemingly remote status. I ended up at another crossroad, red dirt gravel in all directions. The intersection was Western and Sorghum Mill. I really loved that intersection and I took a memory picture of it. Afterward, when I got home, it all poured out of me.
Red gravel roads of curiosity
Are driven, not with ease always
But driven all the same
The terra cotta earth
Gives way by force
To cement and caliche, mixed and tumbled
Easier to consume, some may say
Than red gravel
The pattern of slow ease
From the earthen roads
Isn’t as welcomed on the cement
Here, they want to go faster
Here, they begin to dis-miss the deer
On the wooded shoulder
Because it becomes a blur at these speeds
This seemingly better road then changes
It becomes
A freshly painted line of yellow polka dots
And a smooth tar finish
The speed limit is faster than ever
Sports cars and pressure tailgate your rearview
You try to wave them past you
So you can continue your speeds and patterns of slow ease
They continue to hug your bumper
They flash their headlights of impatience
You speed up
Your terracotta patterns don’t suffice
In a world of tar
They’ll always be too natural, easy, slow
If all you can do is race to finish lines of
Paved over paradises with
Roads that lead to nowhere, fast
About the Creator
Erin Lucas
she/her
Multimedia Creator, Writer, Educator, Nonprofit Organizer
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