OntheWilderSide

I am sitting in the grease pit yesterday
in the corner by the window
sucking down my greasy chicken
and my greasy roll
when Wisdom hobbled in
He was bent around his cane
moving slowly, jerkily across the floor
depending more on his staff than either of his legs
Though it was easy enough for me
to follow the pained detail of his motion without stopping
the flow of grease down my throat
he made it even easier
by stopping to talk to the man
who was hi-liting knowledge
After a well-run minute
Wisdom continued his journey
to the men’s room

I met Wisdom’s son in the library today
actually I met him the day before
but I hadn’t realized who he was
til I had talked with him for a while today
He stopped pouring his thoughts
into the silicon notebook in front of him
and started pouring out
the collected wisdom of his life
He talked
of place I had accepted
other people’s poor assumptions about
of life philosophy
of governmental stupidity
of how you don’t really see any place you visit
of things I thought I knew
but didn’t
of how all of life’s accidents
happen to teach us something

-isw

Filed under: Long Island Politics, Recommended Poetry Tagged: | Uncategorized