One moment I have a car
The next moment I don’t
The universe conspires
To nourish my feral body and sole
Not with the twisted steal of civilization
But as a carrot
In a field of vision
Meting its purpose at crunch time
And the growing realization
Consummated by that instant in sight
That know one was hurt
A mist the scarred land marks
Mother Earth will breathe a little easier now
As I will
Walk and bike her paved surface
In treating me to go deeper
Ever-seeking serendipitous lifts
In tangling with the care less
And the car less
I am
Feted to join
The bus people in the world
This poem is an ode to my car being totaled in a wreck yesterday when a woman turned her car in front of me as I was going through an intersection. Gracefully, no one was hurt. To make a long story short, my beloved car will unlikely be resurrected, and I am not really in a position to buy and maintain another car (even if I get some modest settlement for my beater car in this instance). Over the last couple of years, I have contemplated the notion of living without owning a car. I figured that this would become a reality at some point in the coming years. Due to two seconds yesterday, this reality has manifest much sooner, without warning. Like they say: if you want to make God laugh, tell God your plans! Of course, I want to make God laugh. Fortunately, God persistently has better plans for me than I can implement through my well-planned connivings. I find these junctures in life as fascinating paradoxes of the worst possible timing and perfect timing. As a die-hard metaphysical optimist, I am going to go with the perfect timing. Yep, that’s my story, and I’m sticking with it!
So, I took the bus today. This was the first time in a long time. Most assuredly, this bus ride will be the first of many. I asked the bus driver if he had a schedule for the 20/24 line and he said, with a seasoned blend of acceptance and resignation,”We haven’t had those schedules for months.” I fully expect my busing experiences to be rife with poetic inspiration. Look out, folks, my feral trajectory is coming to fruition, fraught with unworn deliciousness…
