Counting the Cars Again

“Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together—”

you said it half-laughing, like nothing could break it.

I packed up my doubts in a worn canvas bag,

and we boarded a bus headed somewhere that mattered.

We smoked at the back where the windows were dirty,

watching the country blur into questions.

You read me the news from your phone in your lap—

every headline a fracture, a warning.

And the moon rose over the turnpike tonight,

soft as it used to be, strangely unchanged.

I said, “This feels different now, doesn’t it?”

You just nodded, eyes on the dark.

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike,

they all look the same in the glare—

and I said, “Where has it gone—this America?”

as the lights flickered on everywhere.

We stopped at a diner, the coffee was bitter,

the waitress still called me “hon.”

But the TV was shouting about sides and about fear,

and nobody there looked up.

///

“Do you still believe?” I asked in the silence,

my voice barely louder than air.

You folded your hands like you once did in prayer,

but didn’t say anything back.

And the sky stretched wide like it always had promised,

but promises feel thinner now.

We used to believe they were meant for us—

now we just wonder how.

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike,

we’re still just drifting along—

and I said, “We were looking for something, weren’t we?”

you said, “Maybe we had it all wrong.”

“America…” I whispered into the hum of the road,

“are you somewhere we missed?”

Or are you the thing we keep almost remembering—

a feeling we’re learning to resist?

And the bus rolls on through the night without answers,

past towns that don’t feel the same—

we’re still just two people, still quietly asking

if pride can come back to its name.

///

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike,

each one a life, a story—

and I said, “We came here to find something better…”

you said, “We came here for glory.”

But glory is quieter than we imagined,

and harder to hold in our hands—

so we sit in the dark with the ghosts of a promise,

and try to remember the plan.

Based on 'America', the song by Simon and Garfunkel but weaving in the mess that America is in today. I believe the original song should be today's anthem. Maybe it would help Americans feel what they once did in their country: proud.

Paul Simon is, in my opinion, one of the best song writers, ever. This one would be for my father. I still remember all the songs on 'Bookends' word for word. All these years later...