road sign

Written by wordSwork
in a few seconds

road sign
grey dusty winds are blowing in from the north on a dry afternoon
it doesn't take long for them to dry the ground back to bone dry in this california desert biome

a 25ish road babe sits with a cardboard sign that reads:
flat broke, need travel money
she's got a dark beige knitted cap on her head,
she's sitting cross legged in this wind
her profile is strong and noble,
determined and stalwart

my driver won't stop,
too many cars at our back
i'd stop and chat with her back in the day
and talk
and pick her brain
and maybe do the road trip thing with her
and so I think,

but then i meditate
on the futile feel i now feel

i go back to the wind
and the dust
and the milling cars
and the litter
on the road's shoulders,
the smudges on everything i looked at today that seemed clean,
but hid grime and dirt,
and people around me acted like nothing was wrong,
but they wore masks of pain and fatigue,
their only weapon was to be strong,
and move on,
and let the wind blow

as the car slows, i look through my synthetic view,
a plastic world
i see a rusting world,
rushing by my moving car

through its port side window i see scattered thorny plants,
lush and green,
supple and pliable still,
before the coming summer heat turns them hard and stiff and brown
the kind
that grows on the same latitudes in Jerusalem,
the kind
that has its thorns shaped like stars,
sharp and long,
and stiff to pierce and prick
and hurt to kill

the kind,
the same,
used to weave a crown for the man, Jesus
about 2000 years ago

so i was told by a Lebanese man a while ago,
who knows of such things,
he should know,
his city was razed to rubble a few years ago

meanwhile, i've made it home,
the wind here brushes its loud whispers that turn to echoing cascades of rushing water,
with low murmurs,
then building to decibels like restrained anger,
like esoteric knowledge,
insider's omens,
like nothing matters

the struggle continues,
inexorable
the dust,
the rust
spring and rain,
summer and death

the traffic moves on,
the cycle repeats,
on and on

the girl looking for some money and a ride will move on,
taken by the wind
and meet with futility at the next bend