THIRTY : On the bus

She had come into the bus
heaving and sighing,
hair askew, face smudged
slowly she stood balancing on the flats.
The bag delicately poised on the frail shoulders,
Pushed sometimes by the maddening crowd.

I sat there motionless, escaping through the open window
Above the rattle and the dust.
I could feel her desperate eyes
Trying to locate a nonexistent seat.
Swaying to the slow rhythm
Of the creaking bus.
Yet I sat motionless, like the meditating Buddha.

She was out of the corner of my eye –
Imagination grew with every movement,
Slowly she metamorphosed into a dream,
Standing there trying to dodge elbows, gropes and pushes.
She had bloomed into divinity
in the fertile plains of my mind.

Soon she moved, her destination arrived
She trudged forward through the aisle
My eyes followed, shattered and broken.
- so ordinary a face as ever can be,
Yet I sat motionless, without inviting her to sit.