Most mornings of 1999 I caught the 7:04 train
and felt compassion for all the downcast faces,
a 12-year-old witness to disappointment.
A people alive to the world would bring colour to trains;
had my fellow commuters suppressed
their true desires for life?
I continued observing, noticing, watching
for the next decade or more, until friends invited
me to step into my own shoes: to participate.
Set free from such memories and judgments
I embraced this people and their enterprise
with pen, mind and heart.
Now I hop off trains and walk
with the moving assembly, joining in
with fashion and courage, ‘life abounding’.
