In This Heavy Traffic

Patricia MiltonQuote

The traffic is back, after the pandemic had slowed it to a trickle. Despite high gas prices and the existential threat of destruction by global warming, the traffic stalls to a stop on 24, on 680.

This is me, every day:

In This Heavy Traffic

What if I were to ditch my car
And walk away without a glance back?
While drivers honk their horns
As I stroll into the nearby woods,

Determined, once and for all,
To swap this breed of raving lunatics
For a more benign kind who dwell
Long-haired and naked close to nature.

I’ll let the sun in the sky be my guide
As I roam the countryside, stopping
To chat with a porcupine or a butterfly,
While subsisting on edible plants I find,

Glad to share my meal with a moose,
Or find a bear licking my face
As I wake from a nap wondering, Where am I?
Stuck in the traffic, you damn fool!

~ Charles Simic