A Memory In Simple Verse Vers 2 Poem by Thomas Bates

She tapped me
on the shoulder for
the second time in my life.,
Drawing my attention in from deep sea reflections and back into our past
when she was the ambiguous one
I had loved so much.

When she approached me, I sat oblivious, seated
in the front of a city
bus; and all of those
months prior to this chance meeting
I'd been travelling on it
back and forth along streets and roads
with not a thought
of
how I had missed her so much, my heart secretly aching
in silent longing and remembering.
(It seems ironic that when I finally thought I'd
been able
to let her and the past we had together go,
she visited me again in this way - like the snow, or a
lost and found spirit
flitting like a sparrow down on my left shoulder.)

my first instinct was
one of defensiveness, as instincts often are on an
emotional level
after becoming unburied
from the core/source of daydreams.
there seemed to be a major shifting of sunshine
and the calm of reality, exactly what it took
for her to
get my attention once again.
She led me to the rear of the bus
without really needing to speak
and introduced me
to the ridiculously-attired man I recognized
as someone I'd known and talked with,
only
maybe three months before.
I didn't say a thing
and I moved back through the aisle
to take my seat
again.
she understood my silence,
and sat down beside him once again.

I'd gotten all I wanted from Deviance
and when the Devil took the poison gifts back,
I said hello to Providence
breathlessly inside
to my curiosity
of the things I couldn't understand, and
I found the peace of a born-
again
sort of innocence
I looked unseeing through the window

counted my blessings
then hung my head
to cry.