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.
