On the Way from Here to There

I saw here an invisible man, He lay there, On a bench in a street, noisy and grand, Heavily, he meanwhile breathed the air. There his hand held a bottle, clear and drained, The other stretched for small donations, He slept, his head tilted and craned, His eyes open, begging for attention. Here a lovely new bookstore had appeared, There, beside the bench, a stained and battered cup, A human passed—or so it seemed— And tossed a guilty coin from here to there, then hurried up. He too did not see the man who starved and withered, He looked through him, not at him, nor his beautiful eyes, As one who gazes at a book through the shop window hither, Not seeing the glass, nor the reflection of people in its guise. I saw an invisible man in distress, I entered the shop and walked from here to there, I passed in haste along the lengthy shelf Of novels, prose, and a cookbook by a famous chef. At the far end of the shop, almost concealed, There lay, or as it were, there rest, Upon a single shelf, a quarter meter long, The poetry stack of the scholarly best. I bought him a poetry book, one that opens eyes to enlight. Even an invisible man could be awakened, unburdened by pity. But meanwhile the bottle and cup had disappeared out of sight, And there remained, just as in the poem, Only an orphaned bench at the heart of the city.