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Fugio

Thoughts While Driving

By: - Oct 08, 2014


FUGIO

 

I’m driving along minding my business

Up ahead a sign says “Evacuation Route”

I blink

It could all be over in one blink

 

I’m driving along minding my business

When it occurs to me

Minding my business is a distraction

Minding my business is not minding other people,

Objects outside my car,

Outside my control

Now all I’m thinking about is evacuating

 

I’m driving along and thinking

Will this route lead to a bomb shelter --

Or a bathroom?

 

Up ahead a sign says “Rest Area”

How is that possible?

If there’s any planned order to these signs,

Shouldn’t I keep my mind on evacuation?

Shouldn’t I keep time on my side?

Then again, perhaps in this case,

A rest area is just a rest room with foliage.

 

I’m driving along trying to distract myself

From being distracted

When I hug the curve of a soft shoulder

And the next sign offers a Freudian caution –

“Beware – Hidden Drives”

 

I blink again

My car stays steady

It commits to the lane

My mind drifts

 

In 1787 Ben Franklin

In a horse-drawn carriage,

Driving and minding along,

Came up with the design

For the first US penny.

His motto, engraved on it,

Was “Mind Your Business”

 

He also added “Fugio” (I flee)

But coupled with the motto,

All the colonists knew it meant,

Taken together,

“Time flies. Do your work.”

In short: Life – get on with it.

 

Then the drift lifts

I’m driving along,

Minding my business,

Getting on with it

When it occurs to me

There are no more signs

For the “Evacuation Route”.

 

Did I blink?

Has it all ended?

Fugio

 

--Arnie Reisman