I think I might have the most to say about this poem, at least compared to the ones I’ve written, but I don’t really want to tell you what I meant by it. I hope it’s vague enough for you to find your own meaning but also specific enough for you to find mine (but only after you’ve found yours). It’s a tricky thing, creating metaphors, especially when I want it to straddle the line like this one, but I think I did it this time. I’d like it if you told me what you thought about as you read this or what it made you think about after you’d read it or if you thought at all about it ever again. I’d love to hear what others think of this, but I don’t want to voice what I do, at least not beyond what’s in the poem itself, because I don’t want to lock the meaning down to what I was thinking about as I wrote it. Currently, this is the most recent poem in a collection I’m calling “in retrospect” (or at least that’s what I named the folder it is in) that includes all my recent poem posts. I’m sure there will be more poems in the folder eventually, but if I had to pick one to represent them all, it would be this one.

One orange barrel sits at the side of the highway
It has been there longer than I can recall,
Days, weeks, months, or even years,
Since I did not notice when it first was placed there.
I only noticed it one warm spring day as I,
The on-ramp in front of me as open as my windows
And me feeling as free as the wind whipping through my hair,
Saw something out of the corner of my eye that screamed
!CAUTION!
In a voice so loud it broke through my joy.

I never directly pass it by as it sits between
The four most common ramps I take
As I enter and exit the stretch of highway
That it stands, silent sentinel, beside.
I only ever see it out of the corner of my eye
As I watch for traffic and try to anticipate
What it will be like to merge into the morning rush,
But even something half-glimpsed
As I keep my eyes and attention on the road
Becomes familiar when you pass it every day.

It is a lone orange construction barrel,
A remnant of something that happened long ago,
Left behind when its work was no longer needed.
It can do nothing but make me flinch
When it exists without the system it once belonged to,
But that flinch is enough to steal my attention
Away from the potentially hazardous task
I’m doing when it intrudes on my life.

It has been there long enough that
Someone Should Have Done Something,
But all anyone ever does about it
Is leave a wide swath of grass untrimmed
As the mower swings wide around it,
Creating a mess of wild, untamed grass gone to seed
Mixed with wildflowers and bits of trash
Caught in the long stalks by the rush of passing cars,
That slowly camouflages its original color
So that, over time, it screams !CAUTION! less and less.

If only something could be done to remove it,
To pick it up, clean it off, and return it
To wherever it once belonged,
Then it could be useful again: a tool with a purpose.
Instead, as we all ignore it, it sits there,
Slowly growing over with weeds
As time illustrates that even warnings
And things meant to help keep us safe in the moment
Can become just another hazard along the road
If we let them sit, ignored, for too long.