On the quiet

Poem by Bob Ward

No, not the stasis
  of the railway waiting room,
  people held between arrival
  and hopes for a departure,
  each coddling their isolation
  by nosing deeply in a paper
  or fingering restlessly
  the keypad on their phone,
  wondering why the train runs late
  and whether on this journey
  they’ll be able to get a seat.

No, this other-now happens
  in an anywhere place
  and the travel does not cross
  a land, while there is time
  to share with friends a calm
  stillness, sensitive to such echoes
  that radiate from the Word
  spoken at the Beginning
  so, it might be said again.

And if nothing’s uttered, this time,
  by the close, then there’s the hand
  shakes with those around you,
  true messages in themselves.

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