In many waits —

I haven’t known what I wait for

or even that I’m waiting.

Standing at the bus stop, she’d say,

“Look around for a 4-leaf clover; they’re good luck.”

Grandmother Emma’s thrill at my discovery

ended the wait!  Time stopped at the bus stop—

as I resumed search for her clover and her delight again.

The Inglewood local always came, I suppose,

or never did — I can’t remember.

In either case, Pittsburgh transit patterns were incidental,

because of her company.

When birthing was woman’s work,

I dozed in a chair in the Fathers’ Waiting Room

foolishly imagining my wait was for a time when I’d be a dad

and that it would begin by dawn — which it did —

to the relief of both parents.

But I was as mistaken, then as at the bus stop.

In subsequent years, as an adult child befriended me

I discovered what I’d been searching for

that night of a child’s birth;

a joy unrecognizable as an object of my wait, until it came.

Now I find missing clearer than waiting — the heart

trumpets what’s missing, or who. 

So I find myself at a stop as silent solstice crawls this way.

I look still and again for a cradled Crossling as I wait,

and gentle and fierce company of other waiters

with whom I finally come to know

that I wait for good times, God-times — these stops,

waiting with the One or ones I miss,

and with those others given me in the meantime

between now and when the delight of Another once-born and still alive

comes again.

 WILLIAM R. LEETY is pastor of Overbrook Church, Columbus, Ohio.

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