There’s a little bus stop that I use
A quiet sheltered stop
A long slim plastic seat to rest me too
I like to be in situ there
Long before I need
Long before the bus comes into view
I must have sat for hours there
When you count it up
All the time
I’ve sat there for a bus
But I am not ‘sat sitting’
As Hilda Baker said
It’s meditation time
It’s never fuss
A field of green lies out before me
Trees, a hidden house
Horizon stretching all the way to Fife
Ochil Hills fall tumbling
To an unseen River Forth
And a railway line
Cuts country like a knife
The hours I spent in Hawkstone church
Under a swaying lamp
Hours of meditation year on year
Now repeated in Broomridge
Stirling town’s southern edge
Happy in old age to be just here
My little bus from Bannockburn
Arrives on time it always does
A private taxi takes me into town
Islamic Centre is my stop
Waitrose then is just a hop
To give those aisles
A proper up and down
They know me there
I’m always in
To get provisions and ‘le vin’
My visits there down to a fine art
Not for me the aimless wander
I’m straight in and know the plunder
Half an hour will do me in the mart
Coming home the road is busy
The sheltered bus stop sometimes windy
The traffic can come hurtling along
Now that Covid’s nearly over
Folk are rushing more and more, they
Greedy for life
Wanting to sing life’s song
Me, I’m glad my driving ’s over
Bus and train is now my rover
And sitting at a bus stop can be fun
Meeting folk and say hello
Or sitting quiet even in snow
I hope this game will run and run
And run
Brian Fahy
27 May 2021
Erris Poetry 