My wheels spin away from new constructions,
Mansion monstrosities planted amongst
the dots of settled two-storied dwellings.
Where stony-faced lions guard the gated way.
No tresspassing foot treads landscaped nature,
These slide into the distance as the road
now is carved around the watchful trees;
suspiciously eyeing the intruders,
limbs reaching out, mournful they stand alone.

The road runs through the years, past the fields stripped
bare of corn.  The spent soil turned over and
caressed by dew to deep brown, a carpet
of jeweled patterns in red and gold
those gifts of autumn bequeathed by the trees.
The road twists and turns, the crests rise and fall
into other worlds I dare to traverse.

A portent in the early morning mist;
It gathers like a cloud that fell from grace
Hangs low and points into the distance
long and thin like an accusing finger
at this incongruous abandonment.
Along a neat row of the disconnected
discarded,dark screens line up for a show.
They dot the edges of the lonely road.
Air conditioners though lying broken,
still have power to change the atmosphere.

No wonder the trees watch through knotted eyes.
There is no escape from this creature, man.
Between two poles a tattered net stretches
like some ancient ruin of a clothesline.
And at the edge of the now missing crop
stands a chair, empty.  Perhaps it is held,
waiting for the invisible scarecrow,
The shadow image of the intruder.