for Greta Thunberg
The bus station, Vilnius, late spring,
and downstairs, in the warren of small shops
among the soft drinks and cigarette machines,
the phone repairs and half-price trolley bag –
a glass-windowed kiosk selling seeds.
Seeds, and only seeds (who would have guessed)
in little paper packets on wire frames –
carrot, onion, lettuce, rocket, chive,
and pomegranate maybe, a bright array
of plants and flowers I struggle to recognise.
The clock ticking, my bus about to leave,
and still I cannot convince myself to move,
but stand there watching magic happening:
the young assistant, sat there all alone,
lost in the troubled waters of her screen,
suddenly now a figure out of myth,
charged with sitting still when all the world
is in constant random motion, incessant flux,
her mind attuned to patterns overlooked,
the longer cycles of a greater journey,
while headlong towards the departure gates we rush
through a leaf-storm of discarded ticket stubs.
Pat Boran’s most recent collection is Then Again (Dedalus Press)
