Lines of Longitude
- Details
- Written December 2009
From the Pillars of Hercules
They travel west to reach the east
Circumnavigating the globe
With Harrison's clock
To maintain the course
Crossing the Atlantic like Columbus
Wondering where to go next
And when they’ve reached there
Going on, ever onward
To a newer than new world
Trans-American highway
State by state and line by line
River beds and mountain tops
Great Lakes and gouged out canyons
Picking up the trade winds
Until Route 66 crosses the continent
Heading for the date line
At a hundred and eighty degrees
Zig-zagged with cut-backs
From the straight and narrow.
Horizontal louvers
Cast shadows on a wall
With lines parallel but not quite straight
Dividing the infinite and unending
Day after day till the end of days
Lines of longitude
Count the years with crows’ feet
Smiling in wrinkled skin
Shrivelled with subcutaneous damage
Of over-exposure
Long lines laid out as neurons
Tied in a topknot over the pole
Projecting an image sharply
Onto grey matter
Where straight is no longer straight
So the shutters close
With the Ferris wheel in reverse
Returning to the solitary confinement
Of the Med and their older than old world
As the clock strikes twelve.
Thoughts on lines of longitude prompted by the shadows of shutters and other lines at Shutters on the Beach Hotel overlooking the Pacific and the Santa Monica Pier where Route 66 ends.
Los Angeles
Los Angeles