The Logbook of Movement

Right now, the bus boy is counting his money
through the faces of those coming down
from the bus. He measures in the face of each
tired passenger the distance of a journey,
the stops and starts, the shift of light and rain,
and the red dust of abandoned outposts.
I am watching him as the world pass us by.
Shone by questions, the world mirrors to us
the memories of thunder and the edge
of every new city; the long lines of trees,
the aubade of cargoes, and the cemeteries
of the brave and foolish. What else do I need
to do but to pay for my passage through
the long and windy road of this world?
A horse gallops pass the bus; a camel follows
slowly. As long as there is movement
the world continues. This I know, it is the ruin
of a place that moves us toward paradise.
A dog barks, a crying child stops and watches,
staccato upon staccato, I am here now.
The rain has begun, the bus is preparing
to depart. I am walking beside the bars
and parlors of this ancient city of boats
and mariners, and before me there is, alone
in a street corner, the solitude of an empty bench.
In the cosmos of every invention, it is the lyric
of movement that I am reaching out to, its sheen,
its velvet gown. It is the lyric will save me.