THE
COMMUTER
There's
a man on the bus,
(neat, in a shirt and a tie).
Manifestly ordinary,
(as he lives, so he shall die).
He reads papers intently, (a lawyer maybe?).
He jots in the margins, and nods knowingly.
ADOPTION it says, in bold uppercase.
What is it that he reads, to give that look upon his
face?
He looks out the window, with far away eyes,
and deep in his heart old emotions arise.
And in a long distant past, a chilly wind gives out a
blast,
and in the mirror of his soul......a young baby cries.
There is a baby in a room (a long, long time
ago).
Fresh from the womb (just a month or so).
He's in a 'temporary dwelling' (much like a
shed),
he's soiled and he's sodden (and he hasn't
been fed).
He's living with his Auntie (his Mum couldn't
cope),
it's a short term arrangement (at least so we
hope).
He cries and he screams - but there's no-one to hear.
(His Aunt is out with men, and drunk on cheap
beer).
Day after day, week after week,
The cries are reducing, the baby grows meek.
"Why don't they care for him?" The neighbours
exclaim.
"That baby's neglected and clearly in pain".
Weeks become months, until the welfare come,
(Bye Auntie......thanks for all you have
done).
They're taking him now from his trouble and strife.
Yes, he's going on to live a much better life.
There is a little boy on a farm (a long time
ago).
He's sad and he's lonely (it's his genes you
know).
There's no-one to play and sheep do not talk,
and ducks and chooks, they just shuffle and squawk.
Daddy doesn't want him (the kid's not of his
seed,
and he wasn't consulted about this mouth to feed).
And in the years to come when the boy makes mistakes.
Daddy will be watching (in the grass like a
snake).
(But Daddy is patient, he's not in a rush,
a little boy's spirit is easy to crush).
Daddy won't hit him (no, that's not his role).
Daddy's more subtle (he strikes for the soul).
The little boy visits Granny (a long way away).
Where people whisper about him (it's strange
things they say).
He has cousins there (but they don't want to
play).
(Don't dig the dirt and don't stir the mud,
he's not a bad kid but he's not of our blood).
They know things about him (that he doesn't
know)
He's not one of us (doesn't it show?).
Watch what you say, make sure you don't tell.
(if those cousins slip up, their life will be
hell).
They're relieved when he's gone (back to that
farm).
If he doesn't find out, it does the least harm.
There is a little boy (a long time ago).
He's clearly upset (but doesn't like it to
show).
He's by Mummy's side, she's gasping for breath,
pale and panting, looking like death.
He's seen it often before (Mummy's going away).
Will she come back this time? (Too hard to
say).
Will he be all right, if Mummy leaves him alone?
No need to worry....Daddy's still at home.
There's a little boy (a long time ago).
They're sending him away (he's ten or so).
"You will soon settle in" Mummy says with a
squeeze,
"if you stay clear of trouble, you'll find it a
breeze.
You'll learn lots of things and you'll have your own bed.
A good boarding school will get you ahead".
As Mummy drives away, he doesn't shed a tear.
Nobody will see this young child's fear.
But something occurred, as she drove away,
a keen will to learn was stopped dead that day.
He didn't learn to add and he barely learned to write.
(Daddy, was pleased, "See, I was
right").
The little boy survives (teeth still intact),
learns how to be tough (more illusion than
fact).
He learns how to keep those bullies at bay,
(though sometimes by hiding I have to say).
A broken nose, for sure (and of course that
fractured jaw).
Well, it's a price you must pay,
(some types of pain though, never go away).
But he never let them take him, as were some,
taken to bad places, where bad things were done.
He emerges years later but his spirit's mislaid,
five years has only taught him, how to be afraid.
There's a young man now (he's seventeen, at
best).
He has stood up to life (but he's failing
every test).
He lives in a flea pit (and couldn't give a
damn).
Always drunk or stoned (he's not a healthy
man).
He knows he's unhappy, but he couldn't give a stuff,
and of drugs in particular, he just can't get enough.
Something's wrong inside this man,
(a pain that is obstructive),
it doesn't want him to survive,
(so it makes him self-destructive).
He knows he holds unusual fears,
(not simply those held by his peers)
and he holds too many seeds of self doubt,
and the only way to deal with it, is to try and drown it
out.
And self esteem - very hard to distinguish,
(just another attribute, long ago
extinguished).
And a sprinkle of self hatred - yes that's there as well.
All in all, a nice little recipe, for a nice little hell.
There's a young man (nineteen, I would say).
While desperate and broken a sweet soul comes his way.
How fitting, when life has become such a curse,
enter, stage left (you'd never guess)
a young trainee nurse.
She has the courage he has lost (and the hope
he has rejected).
She's bloody determined (and won't let him
stay dejected).
"You're not dumb and you're not a bum, and you have
a decent heart,
and yes, you've led a troubled life but you can to make
brand new start".
She sends him back to school no less (he still
thinks he is a fool at best).
But oddly, he finds, he does know how to learn,
and a fire lost inside him, rekindles and burns.
There is a young man now (he might be twenty
three).
He's sailing with an even keel, (and now holds
a good degree).
His nurse has mended him and put his soul within her
cast,
but a cold relentless wind (from a dark and
distant past)
is gathering in strength....and it's about to break his
mast.
His little nurse will say to him, one dark and drizzly
night,
"There's something I've found out, my love, and I
just hope you'll be all right".
She understands his reaction, his confusion and his pain,
(why hadn't they just told him - what was
there to gain?)
She knows he feels betrayed and cut right to the core,
She can only hold him close - she wishes there was more.
He cannot tell his mother, that he knows the secret of
his past.
She is too gravely ill, and not much longer does she
last.
But if it were an option, there are things he'd dearly
say,
he'd express his love and gratitude, in every single way.
But he would also have to tell her, that she made the
wrong assumption.
To think this secret was best kept, was a terrible
presumption.
For when you meet the unexplained, and have no tools to
understand it,
the unknown source of pain, can leave you lost, alone,
and stranded.
There is a young man (he's nearly twenty four).
He's anxious for a letter, and there's knocking at the
door.
Will he feel better now, that it finally arrives?
(Though it talks of strange events, and of
even stranger lives).
Of what it says, he really isn't ready,
he reads it several times,
(his eyes are moist and his hands unsteady).
Ninth of twelve it says, six boys, six girls.
He just can't believe it, his mind's in a whirl.
He remembers that bleak farm, that sad and lonely child.
Life might have been so different, his thoughts are
running wild.
The natural mother is long dead (so this
peculiar letter said),
and he has a father (whose name apparently was
John).
Nothing really mentioned though, of how it all went
wrong.
He has no full blood siblings (it's stated as
a fact).
In the entourage of twelve, he's the joker in the pack.
(That may explain some things though, about
that baby long ago,
how it came to be alone, in a drunken Aunties
home).
The laws prohibit, of course, any further explanation,
but they tend to underestimate, the fired imagination,
(and how a wetted appetite, can fuel
determination).
There is a young man (he's nearly twenty five).
He's looking for his roots and how he came to be alive.
He has a number in his hand and he's about to make a
call.
He knows he holds a hand grenade, and he's afraid he'll
let it fall.
Should he ring this long lost sister, or simply let it
lie?
No, he's come too far now - he starts dialling with a
sigh.
"Yes, we know of you, in fact we've always known.
You went off to some farm, someone else's home.
When we wanted food to eat, we sold buttons on the street
and after we were fed no-one tucked us up in a bed.
Not the same for you I bet,
lucky little farm boy, some woman's little pet.
Well, we can meet you I suppose, but don't you
misconstrue,
You're not part of us, and we're not part of you".
Well, he goes to meet them at last, those ghostly figures
from his past.
Not all of them, some, like him, were also sent away,
(some years later - after she had died),
they've yet to be located,
but at this point, he hasn't tried.
There is eight of them he meets, and they are a tight
knit bunch,
and they can not understand him, when it comes down to
the crunch.
There is a young man (a little wiser on this
day).
He understands their treatment of him (though
the hurt won't go away).
It will be many years, before he tries with them again.
(It takes a fair amount of time to ease this
kind of pain).
He's kneeling at his mother's grave (a paupers
site, its plain to see).
A mother he can never know, (the son, he can
never be).
The rain is falling freely and mixing with his tears,
There is no way to get them back - those lost and
formless years.
There are things he'd like to say to her, and things he
needs to know.
(Why did you forsake me Mum, why did you let
me go?).
But death is so unyielding - the final body blow.
And in this circumstance, it leaves a bitter
yearning........that few can hope to know.
There is a young man (I think he's thirty
four).
He's tracked down his father now, (an
alcoholic and a bore),
He tells him little of his mother "She was just a
whore!
That's all I'm gonna tell you - from me ya'll get no
more.
She stole money from my wallet to feed her little
brats".
(Some things he could tolerate but apparently
not that).
"I only went to see her, for physical relief,
(It's just the facts of life, my boy, I don't
mean to cause you grief).
But go lookin' somewhere else if you wanna find a saint.
A lotta things ya mother was but that's one thing she
aint".
Strange, that he had sought him out, with such a passion
and a yen,
yet after one encounter, the two shall not meet again.
There are truly things in life, to make you want to cry,
how a woman can be desperate, yet a man can justify.
How simple turns to complex, through the spilling of a
seed.
How a tortured life begins, in such a basic human need.
How prevailing circumstances, can produce the wrong
result,
How two can be to blame, yet neither be at fault.
How a life can be conceived and then simply cast aside.
How there can be the wrong convergence,
in life's unrelenting tide.
There is a man turned forty (he's more than a
little sad).
His little brother has just killed himself (was
life really all that bad?).
Though time and circumstance, forbade them to be close,
in an embryonic past, they had shared a common host.
And the pain in her release to that unreachable location,
was the mutual pain of common blood, of mutual loss, and
dislocation.
Well his brother, he has joined her now, and there is no
redemptive act,
nothing to be done, that can ever get them back.
There is a man still forty (and he's nearly
come apart).
He has found another sister (and she has
poison in her heart).
She is trying to destroy him, for what purpose I'm not
sure.
Perhaps it is just habit, in a nature soundly flawed.
To say that she is evil, exaggerates belief,
but of this form of sickness, there is no medical relief.
So it is with sadness, he finds he must withdraw.
And to this sister struck with madness,
he must shut and bolt the door.
There is a man of forty one (he's been through
many trials).
But he has found another brother, one who at last can
make him smile.
There is an essence flows between them, intangible yet
strong,
a reciprocating passion, a knowledge they belong.
But there is a certain sadness too, that dwells in both
their hearts,
it is of all the years they lost, when life had kept them
far apart.
But at least they are together now, and can tread a
common path,
and they can talk of their beginnings, their mother's
life and death,
and it's tortured aftermath. And they can reason it
between them,
and find some peace in their collusion,
brothers, not merely of the blood, but of fact, and not
illusion.
Yes he's found his little brother, (and for
that he's really glad).
for at last he has another, who knows why he feels so
sad.
And he has his little nurse, who holds him 'til he
sleeps,
And now he has his little babies, who make him smile,
when, at times, all he wants to do, is bend his head and
weep.
There is a man of forty one (he pursues a
certain quest).
He has one brother left to find, then at last, he can lay
it all to rest.
So many things he has discovered (but
understood too few).
Are some things best left uncovered? (That
judgement's up to you).
But when he looks back on it all, (and I'm
sure he does reflect).
He must watch for certain thoughts, and be very
circumspect.
For otherwise there is a risk (and it's more
than merely slight)
that chilly winds, from years gone by,
may yet engulf him in the night.
There is a man on the bus,
(ordinary, in a shirt and tie).
His time is up, his stop has come,
(he rises slowly with a sigh).
And somewhere lost in space and time,
(in the inner chambers of his mind)
a biting wind that gathers pace,
smites a tiny baby's face,
and he gives out to the world....a lone and haunting cry.
Michael Gray - 1997
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