This lounge is abuzz with life.
Kids play hide-and-seek
and run in every which way.
Screens aglow with predictable offers
of colorful games
or news of the day
or forecasts for snow.
Every face casts its shadow
on the world of this place.
We all wait on an arrival
of someone we expected already.
We all wait for the same
important person to be.
We all wait to say thanks
for the gifts we all have in hand.
So we wait, in this large room
within many large rooms,
and peer through our windows
to anticipate an arrival.
Some say they will not show.
Some say they’ve already come.
Some say “any day now”,
but those people are crazy,
happy to waste their days.
Some faces are familiar
in this crowded room.
Many are new here, and sit
in a seat recently held
by a now missing face.
The longer we sit the less
familiar the faces become.
Before we give up our own seat
to leave the waiting area
we recognize almost no one.
But eventually all depart.
We take our stand and look
for an exit, our bodies
weary from the waiting,
and finding one we
smile and nod to those
we faintly remember
as we pass, and float
into the next room,
brighter than the one
we’ve waited in for
so long.
Verse & Scrawl 