I am Shiva

There are stories in all religions about the gods walking among us in disguise. Here is a true one of my own.

Namaste

( I bow to the god within you)

Beside the road going South,
thumb out, a young woman with
multi-coloured hair and bags of stuff.
Where are you headed I say cautiously,
as she opens my car door.
She replies, Wherever you are going.
and hops in.


I find that she is ferry bound,
back to the city and her gardening work.
We chat about things vaguely,
trees and fields zoom by, and then
she allows as how she writes...
- a journal, poems - but not going so well.
Oh, I write poems too, I say.
Recite me some, she replies.


I laugh and say that I don't recite,
and so we have broken the ice
and can then speak somehow of the loneliness of being,
about who we are - observers, travellers through life.
How seldom we meet our true companions along the way.



At the ferry dock she hops out again,
sticks her paw back in for a shake.
I am Shiva, she says, you made my day.