Caught Off Guard Poem by Darren Tyler Howard

Most days under most circumstances
I can go through and never be caught off guard.
I can look at my surroundings and know exactly what's coming.
I seldom have to be braced;
I'm never really shocked.
It's not a bad life by any means,
just a rather mundane way of going about it.
But there are circumstances,
and I emphasize circumstances...
Where I am taken off guard
That I am genuinely shocked....

So it happened at a fast food place.
I was eating with two friends
then out of no where,
in the back,
in the kitchen-
There she was...
I don't know her name
Or the first thing about her,

But as she stood in the back,
wearing a green ball cap
Red hair coming out the back,
atop a faded red shirt,
She was glowing
I know that sounds strange,
but she was glowing.

This vibrant,
yet tranquil,
glow radiated off of her
She wasn't doing anything miraculous.
She just stood in the back
putting toast into chicken finger baskets...

As she smiled, a beautiful hora
came off of her
I can't really explain what happened,
which is part of what was so peculiar.

Not one thing about that day should have surprised me,
but that did.
Somehow the most simple days,
the most dismal tasks,
the most mundane of life's situations-
can be beautiful.

I cannot explain the day
or what I felt,
but I know-
that no matter where I go
or what I do,
I will be forever imprinted
with the illuminating tranquility
of a girl I have not, and likely will not
ever know...
But that imprint is a still small reminder
that life's beauty and perfection
can be seen at any waking moment
of life's shocking journey....