The foolish reject what they see.
not what they think;
the wise reject what they think,

not what they see.

by Huang Po

XII

Coyoté heard Owl muttering
even before Coyoté got past the boulder.

Owl was reading the newspaper,
a quaint habit.
Reading, he said, "The overarching new credo
is that gridlock shouldn't be conceived of as a problem
or a mark of social failure." He shuddered
and continued, "According to authorities
a bumper crop of cars is a byproduct of the very prosperity,
mobility and individual flexibility modern citizens value:
where traffic is at a standstill,
it generally means
business is humming."
He took a breath,
"The best we can do is try to keep the traffic jams
from growing exponentially worse,
and give those who are in a real hurry
the chance to buy out of them."
He went quiet.

Coyoté stood still, he knew this mood.
Owl was still reading.
"Even as the high-speed lane hares fly by,
the slowpokes may learn to chill,
reconceiving their cars as leisure centers
on wheels." Owl shuddered again.
He turned.
Saw Coyoté standing there. Quiet.
Watching.

"High-speed lane hares!?!?!" Owl shouted.

Coyoté quietly asked, "Seen any freeways around here?"
He waited. Owl blinked.
Owl took a breath. Blinked again.
Stared at Coyoté.

Owl fell over laughing.
"Oh, yeah, this is a backwater, isn't it?
Wow, are we lucky or what?"
He rolled, laughing.
With tears, laughing.

Coyoté peered into the distance,
the faint line of dust
raised by high-speed lane hares
off in the distance, far away.
And he smiled, thinking,
"There is business
and there is life.
Life is good
here.

There be slow-speed lane hares!"