A Good Stranger

It is a bit off the beaten path,
a place you can sit with your cup of coffee
and a newspaper or book
and sit in peace. Just a few others there,
leaning forward at their tables, intimate conversations
that can be read in body language,
in eyes sparkling with love or fury,
and you, fogbrained in the morning,
but under no complusion to rise to the occaision,
allowed as so rarely happens
to come up to speed at your own pace.
There is time to savor the bitter brew,
time to feel it slowly fill your veins and brains.

You sit at peace. Alone. And not unhappy.
Content. Content to be anonymous,
the stranger in some tourist’s photograph.
Slow sipping. Slow reading. One never knows.
you may be here at lunch, a peaceful old man
under the awning. staring into space.

You were made for this. You did not know that fact
until you were in your fifties and found yourself
on Saint Marks’ Square in the early afternoon,
sipping a cappuccino, strong and rich,
with nowhere to go. No schedules.
No phone in your pocket. Here in a place
you had never been, that you had only seen
in books and finding yourself at home,
content as you had never been.

Evidently, you make a good stranger,
which makes sense considering how you never fit in
the world you know. A good stranger,
quiet, polite, and approachable. Eyes
out, in another world somewhere,
your red and black notebook on the table,
page empty,
but not for long.

About this poem

More than a bit autobiographical. The picture was taken in Venice.

Tom