So, when I wrote about knitting, I got lots of visits from “ravelry.com”, which appears to be an online community of knitters and crocheters. This group easily doubled the number of visits I was getting (but they did not tend to leave comments!)

So the experiment–knitters like poems about knitting… do car people like poems about cars? (Of course, my ultimate goal would be to have this read on air by Click and Clack on Car Talk…) This is an old poem of mine (written in response to a comment, “the murmer of innumerable motors”…), really not much more than a collection of cliches put to verse.

The Old Car

My car does not murmur; she groans and complains
And she limps–just a bit–on the right.
She shouts out in protest at tasks she disdains
As one cylinder fails to ignite.
Whenever we turn, there’s a noise from the brakes
That’s a hollow and cancerous cough.
The faster the highway, the harder she shakes
Until bits of her start to fall off.

I remember the days when she purred like a cat
So responsive, so agile, so fast;
She would tear through a curve and then leap down the flat
And refuse–stubborn thing–to be passed.
I will always remember the car she once was—
That’s the reason I can’t let her go;
It’s the things that she did, not the things that she does;
I suppose it will always be so.

I, myself, I admit, may be showing some wear
And my warrantee’s long since expired;
There’s some rust in the joints and some grey in the hair
And what once revved me up makes me tired.
When I look, with my near-sighted eyes, at my car
It’s the beauty of old that I see;
If you look this direction—I see that you are—
Would you please do that favor for me?