-- 72 hours after the [first] Trump election --
Riding on a public bus up a winding hill
in a scenic and populous country
that the dream determines shall remain undisclosed.
Could be Maui, Hong Kong, or Mt. Kinabalu.
But the bus driver is American –
a frail, elderly woman with a pointy nose
and a strong Hawai’i pidgin accent, despite
her haole features…“local Portagee.”
Crammed full with people of diverse shades and ages,
languages, occupations, moral aptitudes,
remembered and unremembered traumas,
and varieties of incomprehensible
karmic situations, some having just emerged
into the human world for the first time,
some at the precipice of being tossed back down
into the sundry orders of lesser primates
after numerous failed attempts up here,
and at least one or two approaching Buddhahood.
A cross-section of intelligent life on Earth.
The bus is careening treacherously
and at breakneck speed around sharp turns and into
narrow, unlit tunnels. The headlights are broken.
But the sun shines down, warm and resplendent,
so as long as we’re not in tunnels it’s okay.
But no, it’s not okay, for the driver’s asleep.
Seated behind her at her right shoulder,
I turn around and see that everyone’s dozing,
or if not dozing then slouching in unconcern…
lazing, idling in profound unconcern.
What action is there to take apart from panic?
And should I scold myself for base passivity
at even pausing to ask this question?
Should I act now to assume physical control
by grabbing the wheel and sitting on the woman?
For otherwise I can’t access the brake.
But the bus is lurching and reeling left to right,
and I fear such action will cause it to topple.
So I sit there and try to calm myself.
I recall having to wake my dad at the wheel
with conversation so he wouldn’t fall asleep
and am about to do exactly this,
when the elderly woman suddenly comes to,
much like a prank from Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka,
as deft at the wheel as Neal Cassady
sans amphetamines, pleased to have scared me to death.
Or like a character out of Miyazaki
that won’t come back to life ‘til you’ve redeemed
whatever about yourself or your world demands
redemption.
She looked back at me, laughed, thanked me for
arousing her, and said, shaking her head,
“Dis world we’re living in, braddah…Dis crazy world!”
Then she embarked on a breathless soliloquy
consisting of words I couldn’t make out,
although it didn’t occur to me to worry
at all about the exact content of her speech,
designed I guess to be comprehended
through a non-verbal sort of communication.
She uttered volumes in a matter of seconds,
with every second containing epochs
in which entire mythologies were developed
and then dropped in favor of post-mythologies,
in which habits became internalized
at once as mores and as petty grievances,
though in earlier times they had spelled survival.
The volumes she uttered contained much else –
stuff you wouldn’t even think of, like hula hoops,
synesthesia, bad cheese that causes stomachaches,
and hunches and whims that might turn deadly
if good or bad angels had or hadn’t been there.
Gradually her speech returned to sound and sense,
and soon I knew that things would all work out
because everything does work out, which was her point.
She appeared to search around in me for a new
composure, which she found, then said again,
“Dis world we’re living in, braddah…Dis world we’re in!”