over the open water
I enter the city main
the bridge hands its levee
with a debt to be paid
the city paved park
takes cash to suspend
the territorial encroachment
of visitors w/o friends
life calls & doors open
across the barter lines
the end not foreseen
when purchased over time
1945—A Rural Interstate Highway Carl Rakeman
From the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) “Highways of History” project. Rakeman’s work eventually included 109 paintings with accompanying text describing and depicting a chronology of key events from 1539 (“The Coming of the Horse”) through 1945 (“Rural Interstate Highway” and “Urban Depressed Express Highway”). https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/artgallery.cfm