June 17, 2025
‘Motorland’ was the third poem from my Make Magic GO! manuscript that Alex and Hamid and I recorded in the last hour of our second session with Melissa and Dave Rue for Melissa’s films “Live Out Loud” and “Esperanza’s Turn”. The Trio was catching sympathies and relaxing into creation then. “Motorland’ draws from those “wanders” we took by car from Sacramento into Sierra and Valleys circa 1957.
Motor Land Roads were new. Cars were new. Roads were bigger every year-- Interstates cutting and climbing Through Sierra, The Pacific, Gas and Electric Company's Projects of Progress Bringing more power to the Golden State, LIFE magazine's full-page color spreads said. Cars' tail-fins grew bigger too. We liked to take day-long drives That my mother called “whimsical.” They stopped and started like Celtic wanders. We checked but did not follow Motor Land. Our Hydramatic Pontiac Might dip into a glen Of leaves more spangling than Technicolor. Or the Central Valley Might explode in farmland's brilliant patches Round a sudden turn. Or Rod might have to kill a rattlesnake On a mountain road's shoulder With well-thrown rock and then tree-limb. Whatever happened, out there, Would be something New and private For us to share And savor. March 31, 2013
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