Haibun

Brief Encounter in St. Augustine  

Days of walking, sightseeing, attending meetings, eating. Tired and hot, I sit on a stone bench in a square near the old town. Soon I have company. He could be forty. He could be fifty. He’s thin, bearded, brown as a coconut, disheveled. I smile and say “Hello.” He says “Hello.”  I see he is in pain . . .the way he got off his bike, the way he massages his limbs, the way he stretches as if that could lessen his pain.

 

a gentle breeze

cooling my discomfort

refreshing my mind

opening my eyes

to another life

 

He tells me about being knocked from his bicycle five days earlier by a car which sped away. Nothing broken, but left with pain in every bone. Has no money to buy the meds prescribed. I give him two over-the-counter pain killers. “God Bless, he says and swallows them. He talks about his life. One of eight children in Indiana, lost his job when factory closed, kicked out of his sister’s house because of drinking. Been on the road 13 years, hitching rides, mostly walking. Walked from Daytona to St. Augustine and has a job as a dishwasher. “Nice people,” he says. “Kept me on after missing work when I was in the hospital. But can’t pay me ‘till next week.”  

 

the old/young man

with his home in a pack

shares his free shade

and calls me a saint

when I give him a ten 

Drifting Sands