Who Lives There? ...

This is a poem that came to me on the bus, was largely written on the bus, because it took hold of me ... and wouldn't let go.

Over time, I became aware of that window, that struggling plant. It got so I was watching for that cracked window each day when my bus went rolling down the hill, or climbing back up it on the way home.

I kept expecting to see someone at the window, watering the plant, turning it to face the sunlight, or simply looking out at the passing traffic. But I never did.

Still, the plant hung on, seemed to be growing, leafing out slightly, and I kept wondering who lived there with it ... "what small measures of encouragement" they shared.

Originally published in Poem, now part of a manuscript in search of a publisher:

Who Lives There?

In an upstairs window,

below a sagging

gutter, beside siding

wind-peeled and flapping,

beneath a window shade

water-stained and torn,

behind a pane cracked

diagonally like a fragile

promise, sits a spindly

plant taking what sun

it can on a winter day,

while my bus struggles

in its uphill climb

toward a daily nagging

question: Who lives

there with this plant,

and what small measures

of encouragement do they

have to bridge the days?

© 2006

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Today's word: encouragement