Today I saw a homeless man with a very long beard,
filthy,
sweating in the hot sun.
He rode a bicycle with a tall flag,
cars sped by him.
A mother waited at a traffic light;
her daughter far, far away,
yet they sat side by side.
Driving.
Hot was the air,
and full of smog,
In the midst of the traffic the small orange flag fluttered,
as to signal to all,
that this man too carried precious cargo,
behind him a cart he pulled, he pedaled,
he towed;
a friend, a tired friend, and old friend, a friend in need.
In the eyes of this friend,
I saw an appreciation,
a happiness that glowed, radiated at the friend ahead who so dutifully pedaled on.
"SEE MY FLAG!
I too like this mother have precious cargo".
The daughter’s thumb glides up the glass,
then the thumb arrives back to the point where It started,
the thumb glides back up again,
with each glide that drags up the glass she further drifts from her mother.
The mother stares forward ,
she waits for the traffic signal,
she lets the passing of time flow through her,
it reminds her how the only thing all her years have taught her about time is that it is
subjective,
fleeting,
and that she must kneel to it.
The daughter smiles for the glass has pleased her,
The mother does not smile,
for she is not of the glass,
the mother, remembers when the daughter was 4 years old and all the daughter wanted was to be with her.
An eternity ago,
Yet less than a decade,
but she now knows the knack,
for even now she can feel it,
time is subjective,
she knows her daughter will learn as she did,
the realization and worship of TIME.
There is a solitude and loneliness that a homeless person must endure,
I cowardly imagine a world
where I had no one,
no one who cared enough to be anyone in my life,
to live in the street,
to be nowhere.
When the entirety of the populace pays you no mind.
When you do not count.
The daughter's thumb dances,
it quickly glides up the glass once again.
Her head has not yet turned to her mother,
The person who loves her more than anything in the world is next to her,
yet the unstoppable hourglass of days seems so plump,
so plentiful,
thinks the daughter,
as her opposable thumb does nothing for her evolution,
secretions of dopamine trickle through her brain,
and the heart in the glass now shows 263.
The homeless man tows a friend,
a friend who has accepted him despite his stench,
his addiction,
his lack of home,
food,
money, car, hygiene;
The homeless man pedals on,
burning precious calories from the food that he doesn’t have,
I see a relationship in them void of judgement,
but full an unconditional love that we ever very rarely see,
outside of our Father;
our Mother.
The light changes green, and the cars begin to move,
the traffic catches up to the homeless man, cars begin to swerve around them,
I hear a bark,
the homeless man turns around ,
to check ,
to see,
what his only friend, his most trusted, his only bond, his reason for existing needs.
The daughter has not yet looked at her mother,
Driving driving driving.
in the forgotten, in the filthy, in the animal; may you find the purity of that which we are truly impoverished.