The rain has settled in, and I’m getting soaked
as I wait at a crowded bus stop for the bus that will
take me downtown to work. On the bus, it’s close quarters,
and odors normally mitigated by distance close in. The guy
sitting behind me smells of onions — perhaps he just
finished a burger with all the fixings at the drive-in
nearby. At the next stop another guy in a hoodie sits down
across from me, oblivious and absorbed with some e-device;
cigarette smoke and ash roil off of him. The rain intensifies.
Odors are overpowering and relentless today, and I
am increasingly eager to make it downtown. We pull
into the downtown station, and I rush from the miasma
of the bus into an even larger crowd. A man turns toward
me, and his breath is stale beer. I pick up my pace
and start running through the crowd. Ravel’s Bolero
blares from the public address system. I run under
the kinetic sculpture and into the rain, the blessed rain.
Andrew Shattuck McBride
PaPoWriMo ~ 2012 *Day Twenty Poem*
October 19, 2012
**
The kinetic sculpture I refer to is Anthony Howe’s “Axiom Dyno Trilobyte” at the Whatcom Transit Authority’s Bus Station, downtown Bellingham, Washington. Watch a video here.
OK, imagine this kinetic sculpture in the rain!
Andrew Shattuck McBride, Writer's Blog 