Journey The bus revs up, taking

By: Victoria G. Smith

 

The bus revs up, taking me
away from where I’ve been.
I have become a multo—ghost
haunting from the tinted window,
watching the world of the living:
cars, trucks, joggers, cyclists,
mothers with strollers, dogs with owners.
Everyone seems to be going somewhere,
impervious to my existence. Even nature is
complicit: birds fl y away, leaves dance
with the wind, grass shimmers and sways,
squirrels skitter—climbing towers of
dominion.
I am the lone still
life in this moving landscape.

Poet’s Notes

On the surface, it may strike one as ironic that as my family and I prepare to go on another big move, that I should choose above poem for this month’s column. Yes, I move, but I feel I am standing still as a helpless observer to all the insanity now happening in the U.S., the Philippines, and the world. While I have written and spoken on all platforms, including all manner of social media—quite eloquently, many have noted, about the issues of our time—I feel strongly that the time for talking is past.

Not one extra word from me or anyone else—no matter if they are more learned and more eloquent speakers and writers than I—seem to matter toward changing the minds and hearts of those who have elected the likes of Trump and Duterte into offi ce, to awaken them into seeing that by such leaders’ short-sighted and self-absorbed words and actions and their followers’ maniacal blind following, the long-term viability itself of the human race and our planet is at stake.

What was I thinking, thinking my writing could make a difference?

Nothing appears to come through to those who stubbornly refuse to see how they may have committed a big mistake in voting such false leaders into power. Their prideful egos refuse to acknowledge this, preferring, they seem, to be willing to put us all in mortal danger of extinction rather than humbly admit they were wrong about certain critical choices they’ve made. It’s fi ne to say that one made the best choices with the information he or she had at the time, but truly, all the information we need to make informed and just choices today are at our fi ngertips. Yet many prefer to stay in a bubble of their own making, refusing to hear the other side. I could honestly say I’ve heard the other side as fully as humanly possible, and it doesn’t make much sense at all, considering all the information available both to that side and what I represent. All my listening only seems to confi rm the other side’s ignorance, selfi shness, bigotry, prejudice, and fear driving its self-annihilating choices—that, because they affect all of us, thus threaten all of us.

For this reason, I question why I even continue to write. A young friend challenged my assumptions here. “Yes,” she said, “you may not be able to convince those who are absolutely closeminded, but we who stand hopelessly mute to the outrageousness around us— you give us a voice. You express what we could not express well yet feel strongly in our hearts and minds. You rally us to continue fi ghting for what’s right.”

Really? My Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages remain silent.

(All rights reserved. Copyright © 2017 by Victoria G. Smith. For updates on her author events & publications, go to VictoriaGSmith.com. “Like” her on Facebook at Author Victoria G. Smith. “Follow” her on Twitter @AuthorVGSmith)