What Terror would enthrall the
Street could countenance disclose—²
The job of the driver is very Fatle—
Their family should be very Anshios
Because the driver could easily be Dead:³
Overpasses, Freeways—are for the blind
Staring with glass eyes, speeding Unseeing.⁴
Traffick is what they put for’ard—
But it’s to do harm to the Land
And the Poor in the long run!⁵
We pave paradise—
Put up a Parking Lot.⁶
“Why do you shoot on us?”—
“For exceeding the speed limit:
Any speed a Car travels is too great.”⁷
I’d rather be a Forest than a street—
I’d Rather feel the Earth beneath my feet—⁸
Love is Bigger than a Cadillac!⁹
We Started on our Feet
And we have those still.¹⁰
¹ Ivan Illich, Energy and Equity
² Emily Dickinson, Its Hour with Itself
³ Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
⁴ Ursula K. Le Guin, Cars Can’t See
⁵ George Eliot, Middlemarch
⁶ Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi
⁷ Hermann Hesse tr. Basil Creighton, Steppenwolf
⁸ Paul Simon & Daniel Alomía Robles, El Condor Pasa
⁹ Charles Hardin & Norman Petty, Not Fade Away
¹⁰ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers