Traffic Light

Traffic Light

The lives of the commuters in their busy cars
Are suddenly stopped in their tracks
All forward progress is stilled --
the flow of our destinies, interrupted –

By a single man
in a yellow helmet,
Suspended in the sky above us,
fixing a broken traffic light.

And as the reality dawns upon us all
That none of us will move from our orderly ranks
until that light turns green,
We focus our attention on the man
suspended over our heads
Who now hold our lives in sway.

And in the time that it takes
a light to turn from red to green, added
To the time it takes
For us all to realize that it hasn’t,
This simple man has transformed
from a helmet-headed county worker
Into a supernal Mover of the Heavens.

He works unassumingly
on the task set before him,
Unaware that the air itself
has stopped moving
In abeyance to his unearthly feat
Of having stopped time.

And, in that absolute silence
and stillness that he now commands,
He is a magician,
A weaver of space and time –
His movements etching an immortal ballet
into the sky above our heads
Describing, to each of us,
The ultimate destiny of our lives.

And though he never notices
that he’s been cast into this role,
All eyes are now fixed upon his every move,
As if we’ve been transported
to the pyramids of ancient Mexico
Witnessing a ceremonial ritual
To a God as old as Life itelf

And then the light turns green –
a Miracle! –
setting forth motion and sound and life --
and we return to the daily pattern
Of our mundane little lives.


2/16/02