Motion

Motion is a major source of imagery in this poem. We know; it's hard to explain how motion is an actual image. It's more of an idea, but the image of things moving—of "going," as the poem says—is central to the idea of what is sacred. Throughout the poem, the idea of motion reoccurs and becomes the driving force of both the car down the road and the progression of lines down the page. And that "going" is what it's all about. Check out the deets below.

• Line 3: Here the speaker talks about how the students "fidgeted and shrank" while sitting in their chairs. This is just body language that the speaker uses to show the reader that the students were uncomfortable by the question about having a sacred place. However, it's also a good contrast for what will come later in the poem. While the students are stuck in their embarrassment (and in their desks) in this line, one brave student will speak about being free in his car later. So although there's no mention of motion yet, we do have the opposite of motion, which the speaker carefully includes to emphasize the free feeling of driving later on in the poem. 
• Line 11: In this line we get the whole kit and caboodle. Is that a type of car? No, but it's an awesome line of an awesome poem, which is "the car in motion." So the speaker is literally addressing the idea of motion, and how the student's mention of driving in his car alone is a sacred place. Notice that in the previous line (line 10), the speaker uses the word "car" toward the end of the line. Ready for your mind to be blown right out of your skull? Just as the student is talking about driving in his car, the word "car" is literally moving from line 10 to line 11, as if the word is in motion. Pretty awesome, huh?
  But what's the big deal? Clearly there's something special about motion, but the speaker hasn't quite articulated it yet. 
• Lines 14-15: These lines really nail down the importance of motion. Look at the phrases: "how far away / a car could take him." It's clear that the car is in motion, and there's something significant about how the car can "take him." This might both be literal and figurative. It's like the car literally takes him wherever he wants to go, but it also becomes this sacred, spiritual place of isolation. It's as if being in motion is part of the process of interacting with a deeper experience of being alive. And it's motion that takes the student, the poem, and the reader to a place filled with music that begins to feel sacred. 
• Line 18: At the finish line of the poem, we get a fantastic bit of subtle paradox. The last word of the poem is "going." The speaker seems to be saying throughout the whole poem that motion is what's necessary, and yet the poem has to end. It can't go on forever, right? The speaker handles this dilemma by ending on a word that doesn't close the poem down so much as it opens the poem up. Ending on the word "going" suggests that the driver of the car, the irresistible urge to be in motion, and the sacred place will continue even though the poem ends. Instead of imagining the car coming to a stop there, we can imagine the car driving on without us. This shows us that what's important isn't to come to any conclusion or insight, but just to put the key in and start moving, no matter what.