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June 3, 2005

Melody Davis on the American road

IT ONLY STARTS
by Melody Davis

The American road is our art,
pure process of leaving.
Driving doesn’t end. It only starts

as the radio feeds a secret part
of the brain that’s always running
the American road. Our art

has no destination, though it departs,
and the eyes, never full, keep filling.
Driving doesn’t end. It only starts

when the land curls under the car,
as though it were another way of seeing –
the American road, our art,

our music, our motion, our
world spinning by on a string.
Driving doesn’t end — it only starts

the drug of this country, too near and far,
where place is endless, beginning
on the American road, an art
of driving that doesn’t end, it only starts.

Originally published in Poetry, August 1997, v. 170, no. 5 (60 West Walton
Street, Chicago, IL 60610)

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Category: Travel Quote of the Day
Related Posts: The allure of the American road-trip, That familiar old American road, American innovation v. American insipidity

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