Train Inspired

If you are like me, avoid eye contact is the mantra that runs through my head whenever I am riding on public transportation. Where do you put your eyes when you aboard a train or a bus, squeezed in like sardines in a can? Most of us busy ourselves with our frivolous gadgets - our celly, iPod, MP3 players, or portable games. The rest that are lucky enough to have travel companions gets to engage in conversations instead of trying to look busy to avoid looking at strangers. So there I was on the 6th train, seated next to a well dressed business man, looking out to the opposing window at the passing train, and that's when I saw it. This surreal moment where the cacophony that envelops you sorta mutes itself, and you see something for the first time in clarity. There it was, that passing train, carrying the same contents as the train I am on - people trying to get from A to B. But what was so surreal for me was the feeling that I was seeing some slices of time, peaking into lives of others even if for those brief seconds, I opened my eyes and I looked, unabashed because they cannot see me, I opened wide and saw the snapshots of lives passing before me. A couple engaged in a conversation, a girl looking somewhat sullen as she leans against the door, a man with his iPod, all snapshots I am seeing.

Moments like those inspires me, and words came, I guess that's what happens when your mind clears of other clutters and it amazes you once in a while on spewing out things. "You will it... " that's what my mind said to me. With that, I finished the following poem while standing on corner of 28th and 3rd, waiting for friends to join me for dinner:

You will it, will it to slow.
This life, your picture show.
One blink, several segments go,
several has passed, but there's always more.
One pause, you feel the wind blow,
the blurring of the shapes,
the morphing of the sounds,
the changing of the seasons,
the cycle restarts.
You will it, will it to slow.
Whispering - "This, I want more."