Poem # 4 Seeing the world through rose coloured glasses

I live in the foothills of a mountain community, in a village described, with self importance as ' gateway to the mountains". The location is slightly over an hours train ride from the central business district, so consequently this involves some commuting, usually by train, by mountain residents.

When you enter a train carriage you enter another little world, and you are ensconced within that world. Freedom is station to station, it could also be a prison.It is a wonderful microcosm in which to observe life. This small world generated the following poem.

Seeing the world through rose coloured glasses

As I travelled home in the twilight
in a 1940's train carriage,
myself surfeit with three days of union training,
a lady in red lowered herself
slowly into the seat next to me.

She wore red,
red everything.

A red coat,
a red skirt,
red stockings,
shiny patent leather red shoes
with very high heels.

Red toe nails,
long red fingernails,
red lips like Paloma Picasso,
red eyes behind red frames that
rose like wings from the bridge of her nose.

A fine red web of enlarged capillaries
flushed her cheeks.

Her long pure white hair was piled high on her head
and held with hair clips, each one
adorned with five ersatz rubies.

Huge red discs adorned her ears and
from the split in her skirt peeped a frilly red suspender.

She had a matching set of red bags,

a red cosmetics bag, and a red shopping bag.

A red purse held crisp $20 notes.

From the shopping bag she produced a case,
it held twelve red styling combs of different types.

She peered closely at them for a long, long time.
She picked three and held each to her ear
and thumbed them with her thumb.

She listened like a musician tuning an instrument.

ziiiiiiiiiiip............went the red teeth.

From another bag she took a long salutary pull at the red drink.

She noticed me watching her.

" Would you like a bit Darlink?" she said throatily, laughed,
and raised one henna eyebrow suggestively.

I stared.

I could see she was closer to eighty than seventy.

She introduced herself.

" My name is Camellia, Camellia La Rouge"

We headed west into the setting sun
enclosed in that noisy veteran carriage.

We left behind the city's pollution as we climbed into the mountain range.

On one side of me was a window thick with black grit and grime.
In the dusk, in my window seat, my world was one of dirt,soot,seediness, and depression,

but right beside me, in her aisle seat
sat that old spectacular lady,

"Camellia La Rouge"

and in her world all she could see was rose coloured,
the colour of luck,
and her own glowing environment was
enthused with european glamour.