Two Parts of the Road

The slow lane, chock-a-block with elephant,
is grinding to a halt.
He knew the road to take, unrolled it
from his memory and lumbered willingly along.
Alas, in broad daylight, the road as he
remembered it, was sunk in darkest night.
He feels with his proboscis for a way to cross
the little one-lane motorway -
an unexpected obstacle,
something unforseen, a new
addition to the scene. The herd
parks up meanwhile. The M-way's crammed. Log-jammed
from end to end (south-bound and north-)
with hairy wood ants sounding horns
and sweeping all before them with
their headlamps on main beam.

Beside him smokes and snorts a steel-ribbed giant,
an asphalt-laying monster spreading tar
across a wide expanse of rare birds' nests.
One stands indignantly, it's flight path lost
in the confusion. Is it a Unitarian? Can
a world like ours subscribe
to such a doctrine? Or must it, like the road
forever be two parts of what seems like a whole?
A penguin in a great auk mask?
He's traumatised, has flown a dozen sorties 
up and down the motorway, 
but cannot find his lost co-ordinates - 
and creed.
................................................

Claudia this week introduces us to Borg de Nobel, a Dutch painter whose work you will find at her website here. I have used her image Two Parts of the Road as a Whole (above, one of several provided for this week's Poetics at dVerse Poets), as my prompt.