On the Mass Pike By Steven Van Houten

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On the Mass Pike

To Framingham from Boston.
People always coming;
People always going.
Faceless people in vehicles
Coming from work, from school,
From faceless clients,
Faceless classrooms.
No time for faces,
Time to go home.

Silhouettes in the headlights
Following taillights
Leading the cars on.
Driverless cars speeding
Guided by white lines,
Oblivious to these lines at times.
Radio playing, ‘BCN breaks the monotony,
With time fades into the background,
Becoming monotonous as the guardrails,
As tedious as the day-in, day-out drive
Between the same white lines,
Through the same unwelcoming tollbooths,
Under the same rusted green bridges,
With the same signs,
Going to the same job,
Same classes,
Same house.
In the same car.
In sane mind.

Change the station,
Change lanes.
Continue on in the darkness,
Guided by the light in
The one face I will see all day
That will make me stop, and want to stay.

- Steven Van Houten (1982, CBA) Spring 1981 and Fall 2006