Page 21 - Contrast1977Aprilv20n2

fast enough for me not to glimpse that dear face,
twisted into a bawl, a hurt and rude expression that
wouLd forever' anger after me.

I wanted more tnan money to turn around ~~d say,
"Hello!" Physically, the slightest act. So I was
fascinated by my inability to do it. Ynow that I tried,
failed, and learned what it means to be nerveless, to
lie numb and helpless while the inner mind craves move-
ment, love.

l-ly nape grew warm wi th the beat of her presence. What
was she doing? Did t.he Lilac watch the blank lives of
s Lums slide by, t.he faces of Sunday night dweLl e r s caught
and framed by t.he brown windows, then frame by frame
moved on, like film through a p ro j e c t.o.r ? Did she giggle
noiselessly to the metal laughter of the bus as it
jurrped bumps, laughter jointed with the shrieking from
the heathen in the back? Or did she gaze ahead to the
diir. anonymous outline of my s ku.lL, first. in a row t.hat
ended with the driver I s>

-- Now I have often wondered, staring at the head
ahead: "What brain w.i thin? What thought now spa.rks its S1.W-
stance?" The rernarkable privacy of brai.r.s on bus as in the
night: within themselves; within the skulls; under the
scalps and buried under hair, perhaps a hat; ranked in t..~e
tippin9 shadows inside a moving bus, one of many on the
street. A.~ a.rroor+pae.rc i.nq shell might get t.hr ouqh to it,
even a bullet ""ell-aimed. But listen, murderers, try that
and the secret is killed with the brain. Communists .C, I. A. !

Wash it, and the secret is washed out, rendered pudgy
and useless by the light; it slips through your fingers to
the floor and expires sobbing. TIle naked facts lie like
pennies in your nand s , but what; of the Secret? Understand
-- only love gets through, its granted rights. Love is
power.

I want.ed more than summer sun to reach her with my
thoughts, my love. Some pray to God. For the hour until she
d.i s embar ked r I prayed to a Black Girl riding this Snyde I s
Bus; concentrating all my yearning on the Near Unseen. ?\nd
the bus forced its way up the long well, steep as the path
to power, indeed to love. With what unsuspected strength
drove its lean motor, couched there under quaking cards
of yellow steel!

The girls in the back laughed and did not know.