Drifting
Somewhere between one wilderness and another
Drifting on the
Hazy edges of the
Second, secret lives
We all live
_
Bumping in and out
Of consciousness
On a bumpy road somewhere between
One wilderness
And another
In Honduras or maybe
Guatemala
(Who can remember all these
Picky details
After all these years?)
All was green outside the bus,
Except a young man walking
In a faded white t-shirt and
Faded orange cap and
Surprisingly new-looking black jeans and
I wondered where the hell
He was walking to
As the heat attempted
A pirate's boarding party
Crashing through cracked-open windows
Held back by a
Valiant old aircon unit and
Suddenly
On the edge of this false sleep:
_
I understood.
_
Two old men
Talking
In the seats in front of me
The rhythm the
Cadence
The words
Flowing into my memories
Where snatches of Spanish
At some time
Were stored.
Brought forth
By the rocking motion
Of the bus.
I hardly dared
Breathe
In case I woke
My mind tricked into
Thinking I was asleep instead of this state
In between
Where all language is
Understood.
_
They spoke of nothing more important
Than life
Just life
And every word
I understood and
Bump!
Went the bus and
I dreamed myself
Awake.
_
The two old men
Still chatting on
In front of me
And I understood
Not a word.
About the Creator
Roderick Makim
Read one too many adventure stories as a child and decided I'd make that my life.
I grew up on a cattle station in the Australian Outback and decided to spend the rest of my life seeing the rest of the world.
For more: www.roderickmakim.com
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Comments (1)
This was so very deeply engaging. I love the tale of this story and how you described how those men’s words in Spanish connected with the snatches of it stored in your memory, that their words were passed down to you by the rocking motion of the bus. Then in the end, you understood not a word, making it clearer to us that you understood some of their words. I don’t think you know how incredible good this piece was.