Highwayland Apocalypse

I was born in Highwayland
The wide country, the flat places
The kingdom of the broad straight roads
This, the land of patterns,
endlessly repeated.

I came after the end of weather
after the days of discomfort
after winter was banished
and hunger was replaced
with longing.

I was born in Highwayland,
after the binding of the earth
after the taming of the seasons
and the slaying of want
but I do not rest easily.

For it says it is my mother,
And it says it is my home
But I must rise before the dawn
And spend my light in crossing it
That I may serve its own vague ends.

I must pass its roads to nowhere
Its exits into emptiness
To places without names
And labour without purpose
For so my fathers did, and died.

But one day from some high overpass,
I will watch the earth awaken
Shake loose her muzzle and her chain,
And run barking to her master,
A world without end.

For Becky English, On The Day Of Her Daughter’s Birth

I always thought she would go off one day
too alive to be stable
too vital to be safe
too joyful and too sad, too angry and too glad
for one person to be, and not explode.

And now I see that I was right
for all that excess life as met the air
and in violent and sudden reaction
has taken shape, and form, and voice
and her name is Sadie.

Falcon in Winter, by Sarah Lannigan

A friend of a friend made this to go with that poem. Isn't it AMAZING?