“Look around for a 4-leaf clover; they’re good luck.”
Grandmother Emma’s thrill at my discovery
ended the wait! Time stopped at the bus stop—
as I resumed search for her clover and her delight again.
The Inglewood local always came, I suppose,
or never did — I can’t remember.
In either case, Pittsburgh transit patterns were incidental,
because of her company.
When birthing was woman’s work,
I dozed in a chair in the Fathers’ Waiting Room
foolishly imagining my wait was for a time when I’d be a dad
and that it would begin by dawn — which it did —
to the relief of both parents.
But I was as mistaken, then as at the bus stop.
In subsequent years, as an adult child befriended me
I discovered what I’d been searching for
that night of a child’s birth;
a joy unrecognizable as an object of my wait, until it came.
Now I find missing clearer than waiting — the heart
trumpets what’s missing, or who.
So I find myself at a stop as silent solstice crawls this way.
I look still and again for a cradled Crossling as I wait,
and gentle and fierce company of other waiters
with whom I finally come to know
that I wait for good times, God-times — these stops,
waiting with the One or ones I miss,
and with those others given me in the meantime
between now and when the delight of Another once-born and still alive
comes again.
WILLIAM R. LEETY is pastor of Overbrook Church, Columbus, Ohio.
