Aug 032026

Transportation Poems Again

Transportation Poems Again

Transportation as metaphor or memory, transportation as transformation or realization, transportation as time and distance. Poetry gives us all of these and then some.

“The Mindfulness Bell”
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

And so today when the very slow driver
in front of me starts going ten miles
over the speed limit right when we get
to the passing lane, I imagine
my frustration is a bell.

“Return”
Sara Michas-Martin

I walk to make certain I was ever there.
To find the car I once discovered

buried in the pines. As if it were left
for the mushrooms to affix. For crows

to pull batting from its seats.

“The Sting”
Maya Stein

Businesses had suffered from the loss in revenue. A few had closed.
But now there were new sidewalks and ornamental light posts and
planter boxes filled with seasonal foliage. The Senator didn’t say this part.

“Commuter Tanka”
Tarik Dobbs

What iteration
of events will we live through
at sunrise on Highway Ten?

“What If This Road”
Sheenagh Pugh

What if this road, that has held no surprises
these many years, decided not to go
home after all; what if it could turn
left or right with no more ado
than a kite-tail?

“Slow Down”
Michelle Weiger

What if driving slowly
is the only way
to live my best life,
to keep from running so fast

that I go right past myself?
Running by the small child inside
who seeks to fill herself with wonder,
passing up the chance for rest,

“An Indian Girl’s Guide To Driving”
Urvashi Bahuguna

I want to drive like my father
fast, steady, fearless in roadside brawls. No matter how soft I cradle

the steering wheel, I know I am tentacled around it. Fear is as
natural to me as spit. All I want is to be swashbuckling,

to reign my fear with the sweep of a seatbelt, to have my dashboard
light up like a siren, to make my own way through the world.

“The Message”
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

In amber lights, the electronic display
on the highway message sign read:
Slow down … for the unknown.
And I did. All day. I drove slower.
Walked slower. Typed slower. Ate
slower.

“Traveling at Home”
Wendell Berry

Even in a country you know by heart
it’s hard to go the same way twice.
The life of the going changes.
The chances change and make a new way.

“The Road Goes Ever On”
J.R.R. Tolkien

The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,

Related reading

Photo of yellow diamond-shaped traffic sign with the words SLOW DOWN against a clear blue sky

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