Nov. 8, 1990
The sun shone laser bright in its
last seconds, pinpointing a stand of
trees on the field's edge
which burst into flaming color at its touch.
An Asian man wearing a hat
read his paper, and I watched
as the bus rolled by.

The key to this poem is movement. The bus, moving through the world and the speaker (me) sitting and watching. I am a participant (with the bus?) and the other people on the bus (the Asian man with the hat and paper), and together we move through the scenes that surround us. In that sense we all are participating in the world of the laser-bright sun and the color-flaming trees. On the other hand each of us (bus, man, and I) is isolated: the bus concerned with driving, me with watching, and the man with his newspaper. My shifting sense of this movement between isolation and connection, combined with the physical movement of the bus, is the issue of primary concern in the poem. Of course, the fact that the poem is in past tense, rather than present tense may be a complication -- it shows that the movement has already taken place and that the poem is actually a reflection of movement in a still place. Removed from movement and pondering it .

The movement I intend for this poem to facilitate in this text is a movement towards a discussion of the ways that time can shift, build, rearrange, and destroy pathways in our minds. The "real me" has been changed in so many ways since the writing of this poem. The paragraph of explication I've just written makes visible (to me at least) one of the ways ME has metamorphosed since a moment in 1990 on the Metropolitan Transportation (the N5 bus) which ran from Dupont Circle up Massachusetts Avenue to American University in Washington, DC. When I wrote the poem, I could not have written the explication, and of course I could not now write the poem in the same way.

My interest in such movements is to connect them to shifts in theory, structure, form, and in thinking and writing processes that alter the ways meaning is made.  I want to explore more consciously the ways a "me-text" is created through the simultaneity of movement and the experience of watching that movement. To do this I must also understand that both watcher and mover are changed, even in that instant of recognition -- a sun setting and a stand of bright trees.

In addition to the discussion of the gaps which can be created through movement in a hypertextual structure, I wanted to include in this text a discussion of how movement through a physical environment might create the same kind of useful gaps in the perception of other issues. The bus is a space where we pause and move simultaneously in conjunction with other people. For the space of the bus ride there is a connection between us, yet there is a diversity which always creates (for me at least) a sense of distance. I don't know the people I ride the bus with everyday. I don't know what they are thinking, and I don't know what their lives are like outside of the bus and it's movement. This movement seems key to me because it reflects my stance towards the issues of race, racism, color, and power. The stories I have to tell in this essay are all connected to movement -- my movement through the world and the effects of these movements on my perspective -- the haphazard process through which I am shaped by the things I see and experience.

As part of my journey I need to remember that my movements also have impact on the other people who come into contact with me, crossing my
path in various ways over time.