{i dreamt a dream and this is what she said}

I just wanted them to have something.
They didn't care about the photocopied instructions I handed out,
they didn't have paper to make the airplanes with.
I was uneasy around them not because they were homeless;
not because they were so many;
I was uneasy because I was different.
I had the audacity to make up my mind as to what was good
for them.
I never came to the conclusion that it wasn't about me
that I didn't have to change anybody -
couldn't change anybody.
Over and over again I thought,
"The airplanes won't fly, they won't fly.
No one is doing it right, no one is doing it at all.
If they just - if they - if, if, if,"
Men in dirty toques walked by me
and I became invisible because I wasn't part of their world.
I held the sheets of paper to my chest,
"They won't fly."

Seven Minutes on the Bus

The bus from New Westminster grumbled to a stop in front of a pack of blue-shirted deaf children. Their leaders (also deaf) escorted the children onto the bus – single file – with the elegance of panthers through the field of people.

One child, closely resembling a ten-year-old Freddie Mercury, sat down at the back of the bus sitting sideways so that when the brakes squealed inertia pulled at his thin little body like seaweed under ocean waves. He scanned the crowd; his eyes moved like oil on water. Without sound, faces must be far more telling. Two blue-shirted girls stood facing him and grabbed his attention with a fluid hand gesture. They began to sign, to speak, simultaneously. The boy didn’t seem phased by this. The girls looked like they were tying intricate knots. Their faces were calm, pleasant like that of people who haven’t been eroded by cursing and rude comments.

The bus slowed down again, the brakes screamed - the passengers grimaced from the high pitch sound – then hissed to a stop. The field of people tumbled off the bus and floated away like plucked grass.

I waited to go back to the city with a book in my hand and no interest in reading it.
I sat on a bus that growled and shook. I enjoyed the vibrations just enough to get settled. Windows swarming the seats rose well above my head and stretched the length of the bus carriage. I felt comfortably captured in this people-aquarium. I looked out the window to see two frail women embracing in a long goodbye. The similarities in their deteriorated mouths revealed that they must be related, even sisters. The embrace broke as the older one turned and stepped onto the bus. Here she disappeared.
Eight minutes until departure and the one left behind waited idly, desperately, for the bus to leave. She could no longer see her sister for the window was tinted. Was she waiting for her sister to come back out? Her eyes passed back and forth never resting on the big hunkering beast about to take her sister away. Shoes, street, sky, depot is all she could look at but never the bus. If it was uncomfortable then why didn't she leave? Was this aching anxiety of being in limbo (yet so close to companionship) better than the finality of loneliness that awaited her back at the apartment?
Her eyes were not at ease, had never been at ease by the looks of it. Her smile did not change the restless and suspecting stare. Crow's feet ran deep from the edges of her eyes. Cracked skin pulled down over her sharp cheek bones and turned into crevasses on either side of her mouth. These were not smile lines. Her face looked like a desert: dry, void, waiting for something to replenish it. She stood there like an angel draped in white. Her jacket was crinkled like old paper and her plainly trousered legs - how they barely held her, yet she was so small.
Her chin quivered. There was an oasis in the desert after all! She pursed her lips to suck back the beginning of a cry. She appeared to chew the inside of her cheek (maybe her tongue) and let her face relax. It wasn't long before she pursed her lips again - and again.
Standing alone against the office wall she looked to be lacking everything. She was quarantined in her loneliness.
Suddenly, her eyes widened so slightly that I nearly missed it. Did she recognize someone? A saviour to wait with her in her quarantine? An older man who had been on the bus walked across the lot and leaned against the wall beside her. Their weathered faces lit up as each exchanged bits of conversation. The unspoken need of comfort brought two souls together at that moment. Is it possible to be content in agony as long as there is company? The man passed her one last glance before walking away. She smiled; it was sour and forced but not mean, not to this kind man. She worked her lips back and forth, now a nervous habit triggered by the man. She would now have two people to shield her gulped cries from. Emotions can be so embarrassing.
The minutes were long and awkward, I wanted it to end. It wasn't ending. The agitation was growing in her, her movements became jerky and impatient. The strain leaked out from every corner of her body: her eyes, crossed arms, the casual, yet, uptight stance. Would it have meant more to her sister if she had cried? Had hung herself over her sister's shoulders and gasped goodbyes?
I was no longer seeing her with my eyes, but with the eyes of my eyes. She was no longer a woman waiting but a woman needing like I need. I didn't feel sorry for her, I felt with her as she let the bus do what she was not able - to take her sister. Surely you could call her dependable, biddable. There was nothing within to fill that void cast into the spot of her heart where she did not look. She did not have the tools necessary to build bridges over these voids that cannot be filled.
The bus began to reverse and the land moved backwards slowly. As the bus pulled out of the lot the remaining sister jumped up with a final wave (of relief) and as she faded from view I thought I spotted the beginning of the rain

Most of all thank You for You
And the edgeless universe
The unknowns and fears
The stars I can't see
And the moon's slivery.
Thank You for the tallest mountain
And snow
The leaves, how they blow.
Thank You for each vein in the rocks
The birds and the ducks
The smallest dove
The air above
All that makes the clouds
Whatever You allow
Thank You for making it count
Even when I don't

This loneliness isn't a sad loneliness.
You could say it's like the rain
And how everything stops for the rain after long hot days.
The pavement screams out and scalds the rain;
Not that kind of loneliness.
When the night is fresh and hushed
Everyone is relaxed and excited
That kind of loneliness.
It is hard to be relaxed and excited
While alone.
But I like the anticipation
The consistency of change:
The sun and the rain
I'd have to say whatever it is
It's worth it.

Nobody knows my troubles
they are small particles
and i want them to be BIG
i want Mountains to climb
not mole hills benign
i want them around all the time
i want to prevail
i want i want
I want it to Hail
send me the Clouds
don't shroud me in shrouds
bless me with poverty
and simple pleasures
worthless treasures
lead me through the Lure
to the promised land of poor
as if i could know
what is humility
give me that ability
when everything is all that I've sought
take from me what I think is right
if it's not

all this opened up
under earth is drunk up
is real, is here?
you didn't share
you're secrets: so clear
so loud
we've two sets
ears, eyes
(of now)
they are shut
i am amazed
you are here
how do i retain?
explain! (we demand)
explain!
how do we follow with no signs
how can i ask
what rights are written in the book
Look!
he says
Behold!
it is here, it is all here
we've two sets
ears, eyes
(right now)
they are open