Smell the Open Road

Gas tanks filled with spring water

After an evening rain

Burnt oil

Mixed with crisp dry grass

Exhaust, rubber, and leaves

Animal carcasses and skunks

A breeze off the mountain

The clatter of a loose strut

The smell of day old coffee

Cigarettes burnt and discarded

This is what the open road

Means

The smell of the iron factories

On the southern belt of lake Michigan

Bellowing smoke into the pale virgin air

Blowing through vents

Uninvited and black

The water air carries it slowly into the sky

As tires burn

Coal burns

Into the morning sky

To the mountains north of New York

The cities production

To leave the consumer with a knife and fork

These days on the road

Go long and slow

The smell of semi barreling down the road

Reminds me of black soot wrapped in burnt grass

With a wind swept freshness

This is the open road

And what it means to me