Sole passenger
on an early morning tram
I’m half asleep
when the driver brakes,
dashes past me,
dives into a copse of trees,
gone for so
long I almost get out to walk.
Then he’s back,
his face alight.
I saw the wren! Explaining
how he feeds
her when he can
and her
restless, secretive waiting.
We talk of
things we love until the station.
I tell him of
the Budapest to Moscow
brought to a
halt in the middle of nowhere,
everyone
leaning out expecting calamity
but not the
engine driver, an old man,
kneeling to
gather armfuls of wild lilies,
wild orchids.
He carried them back
as you would a
newborn, top-heavy, gangly,
supporting the
frail stems in his big, shovel hands.
These
are small things, but I pass them on
because today
is bloody, inexplicable
and this is my
act, to write,
to feel the
light against my back.
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