7045. REMITTANCE

REMITTANCE

We have the backhand, the program, coming.

The three wise men, when they arrive, would now

probably realize only their own shortcomings, and 

we  -  having already been to the moon  -  would 

have more to tell them then they would to us.

The only thing unchanged is time.

-

Here in the broad state of Fieldgold, there is no

ruling class. We simply have gumption, as we push

to the front of the line. Like the woman sitting there,

the one across from me, awaiting probably the same train

I am : she stares ahead, playing with a bauble which hangs

from her neck. Glasses, and a telephone too, of course.

I want to ask her how she's been, but she wouldn't understand.

-

The leaflet boy is coming 'round again : he's peddling cold water,

plastic bottles for one dollar. He volunteers to carry airport bags,

give information on arrivals or departures  -  most anything for that

one hundred cents. I can see his every move, and I do understand.

There is humanity in the grain of his young-man's tree. Good.

-

One time, I was sitting on a crowded train with an Indian fellow

named Prasad. The person next to us began complaining about the

crowding, the heat, the noise, and the rest. Prasad spoke up : 'You 

do not know a crowded train until you have ridden one in my own

country. People stack themselves on the outside, atop the rail cars, 

grasping at anything just to hold on, and the conductors there, they

press in, harshly, all the bodies they can  -  just pushing and cramming

until  -  in these cars  -  going slowly while people are hanging on,

there is almost no longer even any air to breath. You should first 
see that, do you understand, and then you would 
know your own trains here.