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10/8/2021 8:27:52 PM John Roth Posts: 5	Pulled from the deep recesses of virtual memory. A sunny day on the pleasant drive, over the beautiful hills of rural route twenty. Surrounded by a blanket of rising lush green mounds as far as the eye can see, the passing leaves blurring colors. The sharp white rectangles in the center blend together as one. Perfectly quiet and peaceful in the oh-two impala with the dull hum of combustion stowed in the background, the blissful rhythm so sublime. The other cars perfectly paced and spaced in their lanes as we take in the serenity. The sun begins to smile down on the scene as the puffy white clouds slowly pass by in the bright blue sky. Everything is brighter as the impala climbs another hill, squinting to the crest, the view reveals a thrill unlike the rest. Soaring above the road with the cars of different colors moving as one alongside the dotted white lines of the pavement in the sun. At a distance now,things seem still. They present their colors at will- displaying pink, green, cream and brown, creating different flavors of happiness. Their shape all so similar, pattern all so familiar, watching as giant flat bottom ice cream cones of different flavors travel up the road, the smiling sun bright and warm, now sporting a pair of shades- tranquil and surreal is this scene... I wake up and laugh as it was all just a dream. edited by E83N on 10/8/2021 edited by E83N on 10/8/2021
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3/24/2022 9:50:34 AM Evan Meyer Posts: 7	I like this! I feel it is the very essence of being a poet that the poet sees, really sees, the world and captures the same ordinary things that we all see, but notices them, and observes how they fit into the world and add to its beauty. I particularly smiled at "flat bottom ice cream cones". I never thought of it, but that basic shape of those cones has not changed since I was five (over 7 decades ago). The only critique I have (forgive me: old English teacher here), is "squinting to the crest, the view reveals a thrill." That's what we English teachers call a "misplaced modifier" or "dangling participle." The sentence seems to say that the view is squinting, but it is you (or the narrator/driver) who is squinting. I was a little disappointed at the first and last lines of the poem: This was all a dream that you now remember? Why not delete those lines and just have it be a romantic description of a road trip? I just feel that the first line doesn't tell me anything and the last line seems jarring. That's how it hit me, anyway. I love the descriptions. We all see those white lines down the middle of the road, but how many of us think about how they tend to blur together. Nice! edited by shangevar on 3/24/2022
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