Waiting/Alone At The Crossroads: A poem

I was inspired to write this when I was about to leave a teaching position for the first time, and I wasn’t sure how to express my feelings to my students. So, since I had assigned those students a poetry unit at the end of the year, I decided that whatever was good for them was good for me. As I have often said, I’m not willing to assign students something that I wouldn’t be willing to do myself. This was basically my goodbye to those students.

Waiting (Alone At The Crossroads)

By Jason Liegois (2010)

Alone at the crossroads, waiting for my ride.

No point in staying any longer, I’ve got another place I have to go.

The road is empty.

I know the schedule, I know when the ride’s here, but it’s not here yet.

I’m still waiting.

All my packing is done – my bags are packed, debts paid, ticket paid – I’ve bought my ticket – but no ride.

I’m waiting alone at the crossroads.

It’s an Iowa crossroads, strictly Iowa thru and thru – the two lane, intersection, a stop sign, tall corn stretching, their stalks and nothing else on the horizon except for a farmhouse or two.

No other people, obviously.

Now I know why the old-time farm wives went a little nuts.

Still waiting.

Alone, not one else, I grab a battered old pulp paperback out of my bag, and picture I’m on Mars, Coursurant, Dune, anywhere but here, waiting.

All the work seems to be done.

I know kind of where I will go, and what I will do.

I know for sure that I have to go, there’s no choice but to go, even, deep down, I want to go – but I’m not.

I’m sitting here, waiting for my ride.

That’s the thing I hate, it’s the waiting. . .

Before the ride.