IMPRESSIONIST

Gusts. Transiting skies,

while I’m leaving, entering the train station,

struck by brushstrokes

of swollen grey, with that severe

tiger’s stare in the air

and on the canal’s skin a running,

skidding patch of angered ripples.

The downpour, as ever, is biding its time

on the platform, a matter of seconds.

In the meanwhile the electric board

by the railway gives no sign, no time

of departure, it’s empty

like the railway tracks, and the question

in the eyes of a growing crowd, waiting.

You stand by the luggage, I go to the office

for information.

And here I am, by a glass door,

it doesn’t open, I knock, the knocking

is unheard because of the booming thunder I’m sure,

and the downpour that has come, just now,

and we are, as ever, fretting in its roar.

Finally I’m in and ask: “The train?”,

they say “Hang on…”, ceiling and walls

filled by the thunder’s growls,

they check, they phone, and then say:

“It will come. “ “Which platform?”

“Listen to the loudspeaker.”

I leave, you are among a big crowd now,

brushstrokes of glances in the rain,

on the empty tracks, shiny

with shafts of water.

We gaze at the electric board, we try

to intercept the right voice in the interlacing

echoes from the loudspeaker, I tap

the shoulder of a man in a uniform,

“Have you got any idea when…?”

“I am the conductor” he says “it’s coming,

give me just ten minutes.”

The stormy light flickers on his cheeks.

Just give me time. All we come down to.

Time. Brushstrokes of time.