This piece was inspired by my 1998 Nissan Maxima.

I know that to many people an automobile is a practical necessity; it is a machine which takes them where they go, and its role stops there.

Then there are others - the wanderers, the hot-rodders, the racers, the truck-drivers and couriers; the men and women who feel a bond between man and machine.

To those, I write this poem. It is a love song, of sorts - a rapport between car and driver.

Sihaya
David Borenstein
May 12, 2001

I.

I am the greatest of steeds.
I was born of metal hands
Each part of me enjoined by step
I emerge alive, afire -

I am two hundred raging stallions
I was born of machine to serve in flesh

My name is legion,
My face a number;

I was born like many others
But I will live unique.

II.

A low red sun winks east
On glowing metal fire.

The ironclad steed glistens sugar-coated sweat
Over muscle that exceeds humanity.
The scoop inhales; the starter heaves -
A great and awful skeleton revives.

Lightning crashes
Gears twine and converge like lovers
And a force beyond life -
The greatest steed -

Roars subsonic,
Toes the ground.

I am the maker of life.
I am the bringer of creation.
I ride fire; it is my place.

III.

Smooth impulse pushes hard upon the Earth:
I feel the tar below me
I feel its human imperfections -
Pits and scars
From the multitudes before me.

Only the bird knows what draws me -
Me, what latter-day Ulysses;

Only a wanderer knows
Only a wanderer feels

I am free
I am life -
I am that I am, here
Bearing witness to the Earth;

I never had a home.

 

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