Progress? Who Needs It? Poem by RoseAnn V. Shawiak

Walking fast down the street, people on campus go fleetingly
by.

Looking around, seeing what I have always seen before, yet
progress has turned everything around, I can't seem to get
where I am going.

Everywhere there are detours, barricades, construction going
on.

How did college life become such a mess? It used to be so
easy to find your way around, but now there are parking
garages where there weren't any before.

Dodging buildings, to and fro, getting exhausted from all
this walking in circles and not getting where I want to go.

Restricted parking everywhere you look, the only parking
meters are by the bookstore.

Leaving my van, I begin to walk to the other side of the
campus just to pick up a manuscript.

Practically running the whole way, because I only had
enough change for twenty minutes.

Progress? Who needs it?

We are walking fifty times more than we ever did before,
because we have to park in designated places.

Parking. Always parking. Is it really worth it to own a
car?