The Waiting

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The Waiting

Your heart is full of fertile seeds, just waiting

to sprout.”--Morihei Ueshiba.

The bus station bench became too hard to tolerate,

the milling minions                     too loud,

                                                   too boisterous,

                                                   too pleased & joyous

as it seemed that everyone else met up

with a lover, a friend, or a family member,

                    as he sat solitary, arms folded, 

                    legs outstretched.

The great shiny but dusty Greyhounds

         rolled in & parked in neat diagonal rows,

                 their air brakes whooshing, their diesel exhaust

                        choking the air of the terminal garage, as

                  their chrome doors made that distinctive

          clunk folding back & swinging open wide,

allowing the anxious passengers egress.

                                              He watched the traveler’s faces intensely,

                                    witnessing happiness, despair, confusion, anger,

                              rancor & bliss--a swirling cavalcade of emotions, of

                      expressions, slack jaws, clenched teeth, furrowed

                 brows, & a plethora of mysterious situations. 

Too often these days,

working for a year now in the bustling

Kenworth factory,                  he ate alone,

                                                slept alone, &

                                            walked alone,

                   staring into the brightly lit windows

                   of other people’s lives, while listening

                   to other people’s music.

If he had been a writer,                     If he could paint, he would

he would have flooded                      have painted 6 foot high can-

pages with passionate                      vases with black & red & yellow

poetry, or started a novel.                 swaths of abstract sincerity, angst

                                                          & heartache.

Yonglin told him yesterday

that she would come up for

a visit tonight, after her shift at

the diner, in that converted railway

car on the edge of Diggsville, down

in the farm country, traveling up from

the Notch, the placid purity of rural

blessings into the stench & chaos of this

metropolis. They were engaged, but

only managed to see each once a month.

There was one more bus scheduled to arrive at midnight.

Nervously, he walked next door to the New Peking restaurant,

& gobbled down some house fried rice, laden with shrimp,

chicken, pork, eggs & green onions. Sipping hot green tea,

he traced hearts in the lovely grease left on the colorful

platter. He smiled as he read the message extracted from

his stale fortune cookie: Someone will make you happy

tonight.

Long distance romances

can be difficult to maintain;

but it can be done.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub Poetics