Waiting For The Bus - Nov 3 2021

 

Waiting For The Bus

Nov 3 2021

There is a roomful of umbrellas

in the transit lost and found,

tightly furled

mostly black.

Like a motley throng of orphans

propped along the wall,

forgotten on the bus

when someone in a rush

saw that the rain had stopped

or the forecast had it wrong.

They look homely, lonely, abandoned,

like the sad-eyed puppy

left at the pound.

The dog no one wanted

curled up in her corner

too despondent to bark.

Umbrellas are disposable

and few will be reclaimed.

As for me, I've never owned one.

Like bow-ties and galoshes

they seem fussy, affected, eccentric.

Unmanly, even.

Yet I'm tempted to take one home.

Hang it from the vintage stand

inside the front door.

Where it will complete the look.

Where, like pennies at the corner store

it will be free to take or leave.

Better than a sock that lost its pair

a single orphaned mitten.

What a sad place, the transit lost and found.

Stuff no one wants

given 3 months' grace

before it's dumped in the trash

or the Sally Ann carts it off.

But still

I imagine there are treasures to be found

and stories to tell.

Some hand-written pages

from an unsubmitted manuscript.

The lost engagement ring

he never gave.

The umbrella, still wet with rain

he held over her head

as a proper gentleman does.

The beautiful stranger he met

waiting for the bus.

The only personal truth here is that I've never owned an umbrella. And, I have to admit, that they do strike me as somewhat “unmanly”. (The quotation marks because I use the word with a measure of irony, since the traditional notion of “manliness” hardly seems either politically correct or meaningful in a time when gender is not binary and roles are no longer strictly prescribed.)

So how did this poem come to be? It was simply that I felt like writing, but when no topic came to mind, I turned to the poetry section of the New Yorker website to see what others had deemed worthy of poetry. The word “umbrella” caught my eye, and I immediately thought of the cliche of the lost umbrella. And lost where else but on the bus or subway? What a sad object, reminiscent of all things – or people, for that matter – rejected, abandoned, unwanted, or left behind.

I have no idea where the ending came from. But I like the sense of completion – almost vindication – it gives the poem: starting with the sad abandoned umbrellas, but ending with the beginning of a love story. Not to mention that the act of chivalry that closes it is a nice corrective to the narrator's shallow self-consciousness about looking “unmanly”.

The image of a lost and found brings to mind exactly this: the possibility of lost treasure, as well as all the stories these objects could surely tell. It's the feeling I get in the vintage clothing store, which is where I love to shop the rare time I need something: a place where everything is not only one-of-a-kind – better than a high-end shop of expensive designer labels – but also where every rack of tightly packed garments might contain a hidden gem.