Day 24: “Song of the Road”

Here was the Day 24 prompt: "For today's prompt, I want you to write a travel-related poem. It can be human travel, the migration of swallows, the trafficking of drugs, etc. Some sort of movement from point A to point B." Read more at: April PAD Challenge: Day 24

“Song of the Road”

We were two or four
The abacus did not say
The road said our cooling
Points were few, so we sat
Crammed in that three-wheeled
Wonder they call a “Tempo”
Tempo it was, one of our disparate
Lives, cradling us, two or three from
Mangaldoi, Mungher and Mughalsarai
The song of the road was split
Into a hymn, an FM pop and
Something that sounded like
A mumble for getting home soon
We were two, who knows, four
Inside a jumpy vehicle with angry
Wheels that didn’t sing much, roared.

Now I have not taken that road
For a long time, indeed a long time
When songs used to be in notation
Instead, I fly over the route now
Don’t hear voices or hum lines
I just loosen my seatbelt, yawn
Walk out in my lazy loafers

The last time we were three of
Us, seated side by side
One tapping into her blackberry
The second mildly swaying to
His earphone euphony
And this one searching
Google Maps on the laptop
For the next stop home.

Image from the Internet: Tempo, (also known as Vidal & Sohn Tempo-Werke GmbH), was a German automobile manufacturer based in Hamburg. The company was founded by Oscar Vidal in 1924. The company was well known in Germany, producing well-selling cars and vans like the Matador and the Hanseat, But Tempo also produced small military vehicles during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. In India tempos used to be a common means for small-town and rural public transport and may be found even now...