Where do all these people go?
I stand in line buying groceries
and watch a world full of people.
There are so many,
yet I feel an empty heart,
as if the last package
had been taken off the shelf
and there’s nothing more to buy.
It’s a mood and it will pass.
I will go about my business,
but the faces arrest my attention.
Who would I like to know?
Who would I avoid?
Why do I ignore some and not others?
Yet I enjoy being with them.
I enjoy the bustle,
the small theater,
the heart wrench of a child’s stare,
the affectation of a nose ring,
floppy pants,
women with strange hair,
and the unusual,
a totally natural face
gone to seed like a garden.
I believe there is a hidden language
between all of us.
In our separate places,
there is one place,
one heart beating in unison,
trying to find its way,
looking for beauty,
adventure,
a little love,
more light.
So I stop judging.
I pay the clerk
and leave the store
with something following me,
it says with an inaudible kindness,
you are not alone!