High in the Sierra the Interstate
cuts its own course above the dry creek bed,
its swerves matching the mountain sides
where math and matter marry to carve
the slopes I speed along, marvelling
at the mileage I make until, below,
I catch sight of a strip of buckled asphalt,
remnant of a turnpike no longer on the map.
This is how we age. Steep crests once
ground up laboriously in low gear are
blasted into empty air. One highway
replaces another. Weeds take root
in the cracks of the thoroughfare leading
nowhere. Above, traffic moves swiftly on.
***
Odd for me to realize that I wrote the first version almost thirty years ago, beating a retreat back to Canada on the I-5 somewhere near Mount Shasta. An instance of what we might call senīlis praecox.