Kijun Times

The Man in the Waiting Room 

The station clerk speaks to a gray-haired 
man sitting alone in the waiting room. 

“Why are you sitting here alone? 
It’s not the train’s time yet.” 

“Well, you see, 
I’m waiting for a mountain boy 
from way up over the hills.” 

“But why here? 
Is he coming by train?” 

“Yes, I can just see him 
leaping down onto the platform 
his hair whirling wild in the wind, 
the way he is always.” 

In an hour or so, the man stands up 
to leave and the clerk asks him again, 

“You gave up waiting for him 
at last, eh?” 

“No. you see, he did come, 
And that whole small world 
came with him, again.”