0270 Strange Day (For Dw) Poem by Michael Shepherd

You’re walking down the street
in the usual way
when you catch someone’s passing gaze
and just like that you suddenly hear
all their inner thoughts – non-stop,
all over the place: good ones, bad ones,
a cacophony of stuff, you wonder why
they don’t go mad with it – you look at them,
they look quite normal, unconcerned…

then you look at someone else – the same thing happens;
what can you do for them? You can’t start
to talk to everyone about their thoughts
all the time, you’d go mad yourself…
what makes them like this? What
are they all looking for that they have
to do all this thinking?

Suddenly you feel tremendously sorry
that they should be like this; you’re
overwhelmed with –- compassion - for
the human race, that all this stuff
should get in the way of – what?

and as you walk, slower now,
trying to hide the flood of tears
and feeling some sort of holy idiot,
glorious and embarrassed at the same time,
the terrible chaos of those thoughts goes quiet, peaceful, silent, still,
and now you feel light and full of light,
and loving what you see in them
yes all of them,
as if you’d never felt any other way
and you’re so sure of this, that you’ll
always know how to tell them, some way, too
that this is how they really are

it’s all so obvious