I sing the song of the western highway, to the piston heart beat and rolling rubber.

Flat and wide, brush-stroked east and west, north, south,

Spanning flowing water and still, over mountains, across the flat unbroken plain,

To move the herd of man and machine where buffalo roamed.

Speeding past the great rail-bound ties of our grandfather’s travel.

Who first crossed here, on foot and steed, in wood and cloth and pain and loss?

Whose children’s bones are left unmarked in lands traversed

Before the time of concrete, steel and asphalt, hot tar and bitter north?

The herd and I, in comfort, pass green mile markers, and the highway basks.