They wait at the signs
telling them it’s a bus stop,
trying not to see
each other, the sky,
anything close to here. Some
have papers or books
to take them away,
but they stare too. The bus is
more reliable.
The middle distance
promises some salvation,
a sweep of motion
that, across the street, appears
to make them vanish.
Filed under: American Life, Basho, Change, Chicago, Eschatology, Haiku Sonnets, Hope, Human Nature, Identity, Li Po, Life, Longing, Metaphor, Musings, Poetry, Sonnets, Thoughts, Time, Urban Life, Writing
Hope you don’t mind a comment from a stranger …
“The middle distance promises some salvation” is an excellent turn of phrase for far too often life is lived at arm’s length.
Thank you. —D
yes D–captured nicely–wonderful HS
Thank you Scot, and thank you for your support of this blog. —D
People try so hard not to see or notice in the city. We are often working so hard at surviving.
What a long list of tags you have under the poem. Eschatology? Are you implying that the poem is your view of a sad state of affairs, of how we’ve ended up as a people? Just curious.
I’m glad to see you’re still blogging. I thought you had given it all up, D!
Eschatology is the study of last things, and this post is my last. The tag fit some of the other posts on this blog better. Here it’s a sort of whimsical choice. I pass that bus street everyday on the way to school and watch the bus arrive and seem to vacuum everyone away. They don’t really disappear. They’re somewhere, just not here. I’m still around, of course, just not here anymore.
Thanks for visiting this blog and supporting my efforts here. —D