Monuments

On long stretches of road surrounded by sand,
on highways at night illumed only by moon and stars,
they seek to travel inexpensively, extending a thumb,
signaling their desire to become “hooked” to any
passing car.  Mile after mile, small town after small town,
they appear as if born out of the flash of a falling star
to adorn highway’s banality as homo sapiens’ monuments,
to stand as plaintive journeymen preying on our sympathies.
No stretch of county is immune, no state’s sovereignty
is exempt, no village, hamlet or metropolis escapes the
hitch hiker’s agile thumb.

Light became less as we drove on.
Outside Tuscon, we saw another hitch hiker in the dark road.
Again it was the same staidness, the same groping for
attachment, the same emotionless supplication
for conveyance by way of raised pollex.

The rumble of the wheels spoke in the dead of night;
the engine hummed mile upon mile of endless highway.
A sudden, small gust would occasion a tumbleweed now
and then, yet, for the most part, the road was uneventful,
save for another animate monument.

How is it they keep appearing?
How is it that these roadside mendicants
daringly play on the emotions of the living?
Whence do they find life?


25 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
12-9-15