My hands gripping the bars

legs doing all the work

on that open road

flanked by summer hedges

bristling witnesses to my effort

no other traffic

a sky defining a clear horizon 

raced uphill to meet me

as I went over the top

to see patchwork fields. 

 

That's how it was

and now my hands rest lightly

on a steering wheel

through glass I can still make out

those same contours

but now unfamiliar signage

 

for Solstice Park, blunt buildings

a grotesque crouching Neanderthal man

punching a sky that had raced

to meet me before,

tarmac guidance to eateries

 

an affront to taste, a reminder

not so much of the past

but of an overstated present.