Life in a Foreign Land

I did not come from here. I am far from my birthplace. And many years are gone by now and still I live in this world of asphalt and stone. I long for the light of the sun and cool air to brush my cheek but my work is in a crypt of drab and silent plaster with no window glass or daylight air let in. I go at half time to the outside world and find a stone bench in the middle of the avenue where the gardens drape over low stone walls and sit there under a cranberry tree amid the rush of traffic sharing my lunch of toast crumbs with darling sparrows who hop about my feet and eat so politely and chatter excitedly about what a lovely day. It is. I lean my head back against the bench and watch a wisp of clouds, made just for me, drift across a china blue sky overhead through the dark branches and let the sun-streaked sky fill my heart. The silver grasses whisper to me "Do not despair. We too have been transplanted here." as salty tears fall in the soil at their feet in this fleeting moment when I am real again and share their earth so far from my would be place. How came I here, I often wonder, to this harsh and foreign land, to toil away my life in the depths of great buildings hidden from the light and the free moving wind upon which my hope still depends. And yet at times like this I can, only steps away, share the work of gardeners who tend this place and they nod to me as I take up my books and wind my way back at the end of lunch hour. Thank you I nod in return for this moment of grace.