Bearded Man On A Bus: Visions of Immigrants, Privilege, and Hope

She said, "engaging and informative," a pleasant cadence," and that these "words flow like the gentle rocking of a boat carrying your story." These 56 new poems are structurally arranged, and begin as stories of immigrants seen through a bus window, narrated by a bearded young man, immigrant or not we do not know, travelling round the United States on a big bus. A second segment of the work is devoted to a different point of view, that of white male privilege. The final third of these poems provide hope midst the conflict between the first two sections, the conflict of the ultimate and historical realities created by the observer. These are poems crafted by quantum physics seen through a Buddhist lens. The 74 year young author of a dozen other titles writes in the Author's Preface, "When I think of the country of my birth, I am surrounded by deciduous and conifer old growth, gushing streams of crystal clarity down-sloping to rivulets and wide expansive meandering rivers, the shores of two oceans, and a lovely Gulf of Mexico with its white sand beaches. I have been fortunate enough to have been born into modest means, although certainly there were more struggles than I can here report. I have been fortunate to get some formal education, receive some commendations from clients and coworkers in a successful career, and find relative happiness in domestic settings, most notably in being a father and grandfather. I have been fortunate to be able of tongue and word, sentence and image, argument and metaphor -- fortunate to be born a poet and have the luxury, like Wallace Stevens, to be a literate (I hope) professional (a stretch perhaps in my case). I have wonderful friends, family, and imaginary playmates. I also have been fortunate to be a rim walker and insightful enough to discover that in the final chapter, there is no certainty, no permanence, only peace and joy in the present moment, right here, right now. " "This tiny collection has taken just over fifty-six weeks to cipher. True, I might have not have understood the directions when first undertaken, but there has been an interesting, not at all unusual but surely divine guidance in its making. The majority of lines came from summer solstice 2024 to 2025. The collection of fifty-six poems spans a longer time, with inklings going back to 1998, trips taken cross country, kernels of poems populating post card poems in 2024, and more recent experimental forays into the afterworld. Don't read between the lines. The white space can be deafening if you hear it." This collection of Smith's newest poems is not only a timely response to the conflicts in early 2025, but also a carefully crafted prayer for living in the moment, staying present to the suffering all around, and argument for the joy and equanimity and love required to persevere without taking sides, to embrace the middle way, to breathe and to smile in the face of impermanence and chaos.