The Municipal Lady Poem by Ste. Anne

Down the street as I walked and walked
A municipal truck came rolling.
It stopped by the curb and I stopped as I walked
To look and to see what would happen.

The door opened, the driver stepped out
A woman in khaki and brown.
A woman in slacks, a sweater with sleeves
A woman in boots, with gloves and a smile.

Two men from chairs and a curious dog
Stood up to help with her work.
They were eager to help the municipal lady
As she placed the trash in her truck.

She closed the tail-gate and dusted her hands
Then smiled at the men who adored her.
They waved at the truck as she drove away
And left me to walk and to wonder.

(Later that day I saw her again while I was
having a coffee at Tim's on Dutch Village Road.
She stopped her truck by a trash barrel near a bus stop
where a mother, little boy and a girl were waiting.
The trash barrel looked heavy and I wanted to help her
but I couldn't leave until my coffee was gone.
Tim's rules not mine.)

So all four of us watched as she emptied the trash
That giggled and laughed in the barrel.
That begged to be lifted into the truck
Two motherly hands at a time.

Then the trash peed from a half empty can
And the lady laughed and swung it away
As the mother had swung her baby away
When he laughed and peed in her arms.

And the mother, the boy, the girl and me
We laughed and watched as the lady smiled
And mounted up in the drivers seat
And drove her municipal truck away.