What Way Will All This Go?

How long would you have to live
For the scenery outside
This American motel

Planted in beige rolling fields
And sere ranch lands extracting
Primarily calories

In the form of potatoes
And various kinds of meat
Products packaged for stomachs

Around a hungry planet
Bound like Gulliver, supply-
Chained by you Lilliputians

To become wholly other
Scenery? No young mother
With two children, watching out

While crossing the parking lot.
No bare choreography
Of fossil-fueled vehicles

Elaborating that lot.
No lot not well overgrown
With weeds disguising pavement.

How much time until all this
Would look alien to you
Waking like Rip Van Winkle?

So much longer than you have
If you dream of having time.
But that’s not a dream you need.

This motel, this scenery,
Was unimaginable
At one point. No one had time

To watch time changing in ways
No one could have imagined.
You'll roll back from the window.