thanks Max -but your emails are going into junk mail and don't want to come
out Uber seems to remind me of WW2! alles
-----Original Message-----
From: Max Richards
Sent: Wednesday, December 16, 2015 6:14 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: 'Fulness of Time'
Fulness of Time
We lurk in a shop -
will the rain slacken?
preferably stop -
watching out for
the car phoned-for
by pressing ‘Request
Lyft’, in our case -
you may prefer
its rival, Uber;
whichever, a black
tiny-toy-car speck
darts and dawdles
over the map
filling the phone-screen.
Now vanished, now seen
again, taking its time,
which, as you watch it,
may say 2 minutes
then 3, maybe misses
the turn-off, so 5. She,
sometimes - mostly he -
pulls up at length,
with a beckoning wave,
and in you pile with
wet parcels and boots,
exchanging first names,
weather forecasts,
countries of origin.
The driver from Kinshasa
loves my footballers’ aka!
Oh? football? their what?
oh, you mean haka, yes.
Yes, my country's luck
was not being stolen
by King Leopold.
(What an Ubermensch!)
Bad luck, you Congolese.
What to say next? -
I’m about to expound
earnestly on Joseph
Conrad and his Mister Kurtz,
but we’re home already,
amongst Seattle’s settler-
souls not quite at home,
grateful to feel welcome;
postponing for some future
phoned-for Lyft driver
our other questions:
don’t you worry about
Seattle’s overdue quake
toppling it into the lake?
and rising sea-levels? -
the whole Puget Sound
region, its goods and evils,
suffering inundation
from the engulfing ocean?
- Not in my time, he’ll say.
What will be will be -
in the fulness of time.
Do you follow me?
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