The owls of the city bleat
This late night leading to dawn
Wide eyes wider than mine
As I walk down this lonely road,
Like stop lights going on
And off, full of yellows
And greens, saying caution
Then go, only to blink
Caution again as I wait
For the red to come
And the old passion to race
In my head and heart
Time cannot erase completely
Like the old lessons on the nun’s
Blackboard blurred and written
Over but always there,
and I am a complete confusion
as to which I should read
the new or old,
pausing to sit on a park bench
in this dark of night,
in this city of lights
on this dark street behind
the blinding street
where the buses huff and puff
and wait to return through the
tunnel I must always pass through,
my thoughts not of the painted
ladies the prowl this dark sidewalk
but of the hundreds of times
maybe thousands I have passed
through this place on my way
to find some place else,
and that one time, when I could
not find any trace of you,
and sat down on the curb
to stare the owl-like lights
that blinked inside and outside
of me, telling me to go, but not go,
to hurry, but slow down,
to find that one bus that will
take me to where I need to go
but do not know where it is,
unable to buy the right ticket
unable to rush ahead between
the blinks of lights
and how in those days I wandered
the echoing halls of this place
to find the right gate to the right place
and the ticket that might lead
me to paradise, and how
after all these years,
I still end up here, sitting on this curb,
Staring at the blinking lights
Telling me to go, but not go.
No comments:
Post a Comment