.
The road,
Is the mind,
And the mind,
Is the road,
We mind the road,
The road does not mind us,
But I don’t mind,
The road is just an idea,
And so am I.
I shake out a Marlboro,
Stick it between my lips,
Light it with a lighter,
And drag on it,
I smoke it.
I am a smoker,
And I do it well.
Smoke is just an idea.
I don’t mind it.
Odd that people,
Should worry about death,
Since they will die anyway,
And death is just an idea,
Just like the road is an idea,
So why should we mind?
There are many roads,
Each is different,
Yet, we drive them all,
About the same,
Except the really hard ones,
We drive those differently,
And sometimes we mind.
I have driven many roads,
I cannot remember them all,
And none of them remember me,
I was just a wheeled machine,
Nothing else to the tar,
The macadam,
The gravel,
The clay,
The cement highway,
The grassy road,
With its ruts,
Sometimes wet,
Sometimes dry,
Sometimes rocky,
And sometimes so smooth,
It felt like a dream,
To drive that road,
Through woods,
Along the riverside,
The cool brooklets,
The lake,
Don’t you remember?
I do.
I remember,
Riding in an old car,
Back in the 1950’s,
With my father,
At the wheel,
My mother beside him,
My brother next to me,
In the hard back seat,
Looking out moving windows,
Buggy and old,
The countryside so green and sere,
The still land,
So silent,
So green and golden with harvest,
Cows in the fields,
Old barns,
Older houses made of simple wood,
Unpainted,
Seared by the the sun,
Gray boards and Black roofs,
Tired-looking tractors,
And old dogs,
And father would always say,
“Bountiful. Bountiful.”
And in those simple words,’
My heart felt glad.
The road today,
Is not so good as that,
It is faster now,
On the big roads,
So much looks all the same
Repeats itself over and over,
Until my brain feels lame,
And empty,
And I do mind.
I mind enough,
To write these words,
I mind enough,
To remember,
And to care,
To even share,
A bit of yesteryear,
When things moved slower,
All things on a human scale,
Except New York City,
Chicago,
Other big cities,
But that was alright,
I didn’t mind.
Today,
Millions of people,
Make their living by the road,
Because that’s where all the people are,
They are all on the road,
Everyone gets on the road sometime,
Some never get off,
Some are born on the road,
Some live on the road,
Some die on the road,
But we don’t mind,
We want the road.
The road is us.
We are the road people,
And by the several billions,
In our countless millions of cars and trucks,
We should be scared.
We go and go,
Then we return and return,
And then we go again,
We keep going,
And returning,
And going,
Until the return going,
Is the going return,
And we live that way,
Day after day,
Week after week,
Month after month,
Years upon years of it,
The going and the returning,
And the going again,
And again the returning,
We are the road people,
We should be scared.
What happens on the road?
Not much.
We just want to get there,
And then get back.
We call it normal now.
It is normal,
To be a road person.