Ways of Seeing

On the bus to downtown I find my seat, not too
far back. An odd threesome sits up front in view
of the bus driver—a man, woman, and child—
and I assume they’re together. The man fiddles
with some kind of phone, scrolling endlessly
and ignoring everyone. I glance at the woman,
especially after the man with phone next to her
gets off the bus. She looks at me once, takes me in,
discards me. I’m startled by her steely-shield eyes.
The boy must be her son; they sit close. She looks
ahead, and he periodically turns his flat expression
and incurious stare on me. I recognize her look
in his. At the next stop an elderly blind man carrying
an unextended cane gets on, finds a seat across
the aisle from me without assistance. A woman
I recognize gets on, doesn’t recognize me, sits next
to the boy. She says something I can’t hear, and
the mother’s face lights up. I see that she’s lovely
in an icy way. The woman who spoke first gets off
at the next stop, without looking back. The boy resumes
staring at me, then at the blind man. I sense the blind
man’s acute deep listening, attentiveness, his way
of seeing. I can tire of people, much prefer the natural
world, and writing in this small black notebook, my
way to deeper understanding and new ways of seeing.

Andrew Shattuck McBride
PaPoWriMo ~ 2012 *Day 29 Poem*
October 30, 2012