Holy P.M.
Tonight, while staring at the house across the street from the bus stop in front of work in Pasaic, and waiting for 70 minutes for the bus to arrive I wrote this poem:
Holy P.M.
A friend of mine lives
next door to a bus stop
and knows each of the
"cleaning ladies" and "nannies"
in her neighborhood by their first
names
because she regularly drives these
people
to the Englewood homes
where they are
workers.
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 10:41 PM
4 Comments:
I like the little pink house and the poem.
Thanks, and for explanation on other post. I guess you were alluding to the song here? I wrote a slew of poems while waiting for the bus.
When I was in elementary school, we lived in a section of Greenwich, CT. My parents were both solidly middle class, and the snazzy neighborhood we lived in was alien to them in its rituals and trappings. Perhaps the most jarring thing for my mother (and to some extent me as I got older and more observant) was the daily "reverse commute" to and from the local train station. Every morning, our dads would walk to the little station to catch the 7:05 into New York City and their jobs in skyscrapers. An hour or two later, the train FROM New York would disgorge a horde of brown-skinned cleaning "ladies", laundry women, etc. from the Bronx, all wearing white and pastel uniforms with white aprons, like nurses. These women would filter out into the neighborhood to spend their days cleaning, cooking lunches, ironing, at the homes of my friends. Even then -- late 50s, early 60s -- I found this commuter exchange odd and uncomfortable. No, I wasn't so cool as to be a little civil-rights crusader; I just couldn't get over a social environment where the women in the pale uniforms and dark skin addressed my friends' moms as "Mrs. R____" etc., and the moms called these commuter women "Hattie" and "Lena" etc., as did the KIDS. Thanks for reminding me of the train-borne women who kept all those lovely homes going. At our house? My mom never dreamed of letting someone else do her house work or cooking!
Great comment Anne. Thank you.
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