Detention Center Protest, Trucks, the 90s

[dukealien]

God sent me over city lights
the national guard on their way —  em dash suggests continuity... or a break
When I flowered (flourished) in Ohio  "When" suggests simultaneity (variant of "while")
in Bosnia another country gone
lines left etched with only glaciers  perhaps meaning "etched only with" - two good lines here
no geopolitical meanings

When I drew their souls up  refers back to the beginning of the previous stanza
When I saw the canvas furling  sails, or a flag
Snow mixed with salt, a fire
Helios having no bearing  proper name, not a new thought with this line
(clouds, modernity)  sun doesn't matter in the city

When I learned to drive a car
When I thought about them
strung like beads over dashes  three good lines, double "when" again implies simultaneity.  And a fine line, seeing cars from above weaving among the centerline dashes with the deeper meaning of seeing the meta-picture while also moving within it
I had another (no) country in mind  driving is universal, as is learning (how to do it)

In mild to moderate critique:  first, typography and organization are important here because idiosyncratic (capitalization without periods, and white space between stanzas).  Since commas are used, their absence can be interpreted - for example, reading the first two lines as

When I flew over city
lights the national guard on their way

is inadmissible since there is no comma after "city."  Since some lines do not begin with a capital letter, those which *are* capitalized must be the start of something.  The parenthetical words/phrases seem to be discursive (asides or hints to the reader) or alternatives (not).

The poem is very atmospheric, with the theme of being both inside and (viewing from) outside simultaneously most clearly expressed in the final stanza but (looking back)  most grandly in the first ("God sent me").

Which leads, circling back, to the title.  On my first reading, I tried to force this into a political context - was the National Guard suppressing the protest, were there helicopters (oops, no, that's Helios), and so forth.  But with the title, and that very attention-getting first line, it seems the greater theme wrapping that of simultaneity, is being trapped in the smaller but also trapped - detained - in(to) watching the greater.  God sent the narrator, and has not called the narrator back yet.  These are  ruminations of an angel-level observer who's also required to learn driving, who was around when Bosnia was a critical country  (and the Devil saw it was time for a change).

(Strictly speaking, the National Guard - especially when preceded by "the" - is the title of an organization and, like "Helios," should be capitalized.)

Good story, then, expressed in terms that seem opaque at first.  Could, and should, it be made clearer?  I think it could, with a bit more punctuation, but I'm not sure it should be.  The effect is mystical, and finally leads to consideration of how human consciousness works in intelligent people:  seeing the map and oneself in it at the same time, or oneself and the imaginary map all around at the same time.  God works like that, I guess, except that He's both the picture and in the picture at once.

Apologies if over-interpreting, and for the lack of suggestions.  If this is not what was intended,  I hope my errors will show what needs to be clarified.

Thanks for posting!