Have always loved road songs and books but most concern an open road. Eventually, it dawns on you that there's less and less of it.

Lyrics

How'd you end up here
A freak in the rear-view mirror?
A young man in the carcass of an old?
This mortal ride is cursed,
No brakes and no reverse,
And the future speeding up like stripes of gold
On the dwindling road.

More to do than done,
But the wheels churn and hum,
And the land of no return behind you grows,
You think of the plans dissolved,
The loose ends unresolved,
The joys deferred that now you'll never know,
On the dwindling road.

Deaf to the ticking clock
You idled in the blocks
For a starting gun that never did explode.
Distracted and engrossed, / time is uppermost
You squander and you coast,
You party while your sullied flesh corrodes.

Ahead the valley looms
Sweeter grow the blooms,
More precious every beauty you behold.
But the shadow's on them still
It's all coming to nil,
And a sorrow mounts that cannot be consoled,
On the dwindling road.

Straddle no more lines
Make no vast designs
Hope to reap not any dream you've sowed.
What glitters on this earth
Trifles of no worth,
When it's thee for whom the bell may next be tolled,
On the dwindling road.

Abandon your conceits
Your guises and deceits
Ye enter where your masks will be annulled.
Seek and ye shall find
Stripped in the tick of time
You're just a kneeling stray out of the fold
In the pull
Of the dwindling road.