Standing at the back door, waiting
while the bus's engine hums
against
the dark cold, its exhaust
a flume chilling into ice, melting
the snow
beneath it, Driver, hands
in pockets, draws on his cigarette,
exhales, and
feels the mean language
of age move in his bones.
Behind him, in the
losers' locker room,
he knows his boys are dressing slowly,
staring into
mirrors, setting their
wet hair straight, frowning at the way
they have to
look, trying to think of
anything but the silent ride home.
The snow,
packed hard now in midwinter,
squeaks under foot, and the air freezes
in
the lungs, burns like a tongue
stuck to a frozen lamppost. Driver
glances
at the bus, WILSON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
in black letters along its side, then up
into
the sky, clouds crossing the full moon's
light like angels trying to
comfort
anyone against a loss. The players
come out, pass him, step up
into
the bus, find their seats. Coach
gets on last, sits in front.
Driver
takes a last draw, feels the smoke
mix in his lungs, exhales,
drops
the butt, a quiet hiss into the ice,
gets on and pulls the warm
bus out,
across the empty lot, down a block,
left onto the highway home.
"Bus Driver" by Jack Ridl, from
Losing Season. © Cavan Kerry Press Ltd., 2009.
.................
(Dotted line delineates a separate thought)
OLD MAN
- THE - Old Man
stands peering up
at an Old Odd Fellows hall
skylight
Is he thinking about,
ruing (No!)
his approaching 76th birthday?
Or might he be thinking about
the poem just read on
Garrison Keillor's
The Writers Almanac
about a loss?
Did the phrase get to him
about young men
in the locker room
dejectedly combing hair
and frowning at the way
'they have to look'?
He, the sometime loser,
whose hair fringe, uncombable,
needs a trim? Some say.
...........
Both conjectures apply.
It IS indeed unbelievable
that he has attained this age
and, yes, he's thinkingabout the
blessed fortuity
to be granted these additional days,
and too that his sparse hairs are
still growing;
but in truth
the old man is doing yoga
in his office,
the lofty perch elevated
above the hustling clamor of
Main Street,
three far floors down.
He just resumed the regimen
of yoga after reading a review
in the Sunday NY Times book section.
He used to be serious about yoga;
surely there is now no reason
to delay it further.
He will rightly work his way back into it
slowly.
The faded yoga mat
made in a Milwaukee
futon shop,
purple and blue,
is now 40 years old
and still soft.
The instruction book
used to refresh memories
is held together with
duct tape over the crumbled spine.
The pages inside are
loose but still in proper
sequence.
-----
Yesterday the man
had a phone call from 206
in Albany CA.
He, 202, drove Yellow cabs with 206
in the same lifetime
the yoga was originally practiced.
206, aka Beanbag or Leguminous,
is currently writing a work about
Sir Austen Henry Layard.
We talked about that.
............
I told him my story of once
picking up a hitch-hiker
who was going in the same direction
we were: Phoenix.
I then was traveling with an interim wife
on a six month march through the western states
and up into Canada
and down the west coast.
The fellow we gave the ride to
badly mispronounced, laughably so, the word
Phoenix. (202 still laughs hysterically)
206 has on order a pair of WI Russell Ringmaster
boots, inspired, he said, by my long ago
telling of my own trips to Berlin WI
to incrementally oversee the construction
of my own Ringmasters, step by step.
206 is planning a trek to the far east
again.
He was driving cab with me in the 70s
to get up some money
for a trip then to Nepal.
He went, and made a documentary
for public TV on the high-altitude tribe,
the Himalayan Dolpos.
Now he is doctoring for a bad knee and
has postponed the trip for maybe a year's
healing time but he intends to go.
.............
206 is sending me a picture of a 'fetish'
I made for him
on the birth of his son.
It remained in the son's room for 20 +
years and now enjoys a place somewhere
else in their home.
'Not to be rid of.'
Funny.
The old man - I -
don't remember what that item could be.
..........
A tentative attempt at position 3 below:
(Asana No. 1
What's that? A Crow on the skylight?)
202 and 206 wore this emblem on our chauffeur's caps:
Ostrich Ringmaster boots
from the Russell Moccasin Co.
Berlin, WI
shown today atop a shelf
but see this for ref.:
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+2-26-12+015.jpg)
+2-26-12+017.jpg)
+2-26-12+018.jpg)
+2-26-12+002.jpg)
+2-26-12+016.jpg)
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