Meditation in an Airport Waiting Room

He is with his joy: two
children who romp
& read. We wait for the 747
headed for Seattle. I munch
on a banana, two
fig bars. Tuck
my laptop away. Shuffle
pages of a journal & check
to make sure my ticket
is in my canvas tote. There are days

when it’s enough to be a human
camera.  Another day I might
have chatted about the humidity
with him, bragged about my small
patch of green peppers, my wild
yellow roses. Today I’m a silent
observer. Witness. Atoms know

what I’m up to.  Apparently, sunrays
trust me. From the invisible
ink of my sight, a little imprint
is made of two children playing
in parallel like a puppy
& kitten & their father, casually
leafing through Newsweek 
while eating a powdered
sugar donut as white
flecks drop like snow
flurries on his black
golf shirt. They are like an Edward
Hopper painting. It ripples
like a child’s voice
into the quiet
universe of airport
waiting rooms.