bus station – don't confuse the narrator

something for the journey

I have always enjoyed travelling. Not necessarily because I want to get somewhere in particular, but for the simple joy of the journey: the “time between places” when, particularly if you travel alone and on public transport, you can duck out of life and be someone else entirely.

Chance encounters in the buffet car, casual conversations that crop up between complete strangers, momentary glimpses of other people’s lives, things seen from train windows – and, as in the photo above, sometimes even the trains themselves in their festive glad rags.
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half found

First of all a picture of a spray of lilac. Because it’s April and it’s about time there were lilacs.

And now some talk of poetry. Because it’s April and even if I’m not managing a poem a day, I am trying to focus a bit more than I sometimes do.

I posted a ‘found poem’ in Spanish a few days ago (yesterday’s poem) along with an unsatisfactory translation into English. In fact the bus station notice about ‘security recommendations’ that the text was taken from used to be much longer and much more detailed. It had caught my attention in the past and I found an old copy of the complete version in my notebook.

This time I have taken more liberties with the ‘translation’, although none of the ideas in the poem are entirely mine: they all come from the Spanish original.
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yesterday’s poem

I was thinking about poetry yesterday, even if I didn’t manage to find time to write anything on the blog about it. Indeed, I found something very like a poem at the bus station in Madrid – far busier on the Monday before Easter than the quiet small-town bus station in the photo.

I’m not sure if the concept of ‘found poem’ exists in Spanish, but if it does, I think this must count as one (line breaks have been tweaked, but the wording is as found):
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