4th rv a traveler's memoirs- on a Greyhound 2

    on a Greyhound

           2.

Leaving Portland, he was thinking of the  above poem of Bachmann.

And it lingered about in his mouth, at the moment when he was leaving

Portland aboard a Greyhound bound for Atlanta 5 days away by bus .

And he even mumbled another part of the poem of Bachmann, below,

to himself at the moment of, not only passing through the Steel Bridge

across the Willamette, but also running along the road,

with the city left far behind:

'Take off and throw away into the river
 your hat full of shells collected in summer,
and leave with your hairs fluttering.'.

Passing through Sapocane area, Greyhound was gaining in speed .

Forests and river began to get more and more obscure in the distance

just like a couple of small clods of painting pigment.

About the time when the bus was running into an expanse of plains

with great rocks and sand field here and there, it began to get dark.

The scenery out through the window of the running bus came to be buried

into the darkness. Before long, so did blackberries on the bank of the Willamette,

Lau's stunning smiles, and the fascinating stage of 'Aire'

flickering in my mind eyes one after another.
Greyhound stopped for a short time in the bus station of Billing, North Dakoda

and began to gain in speed under the cover of deeper darkness.

It was silent in the bus. Half or so of the seats were left vacant and

the passengers aboard seemed to keep their mouths shut.

Not a sound was heard in the exception of the soft engine noise.

he felt rather comfortable at the engine sound

as if listening to an unaccompanied Cello sonata.

The engine sound was rather soft to his ears. calling back to his mind

the intoxicating things of Portland in the summer: Aroma of coffee,

the fascinating sound of guitar, Lau dancing a solea on the stage, etc.
 

In the darkness did come in for a moment and out of sight, the dim images of the downtown of Portland, which I visited twice, one in 1999 and the other in 2001, but in either case Gohk happened to leave Portland at the end of the summer. The light of the sun was rich in the city with the pure blue sky high above, but the shadow of it was deep and dark. White Bath tubes of Days Inn hotel in the downtown were ivory-white in contrast to the gloomy eyes of Mexican female part-time employees working for the hotel with no visa.
Applauses of spectators of ‘Aire’ were brilliant in happiness, compared with the dark and unstable faces of the drunken homeless standing in a line at a charity party held in Washington Park. In a sense, the city seemed to be impressive in that it showed a sharp contrast of light and the shadow in the downtown.
On retrospection, it was the exotic top of Amtrak station near the downtown of Portland reminding a bell tower of the traditional Islamic church that caught my eyes at the first time when I was approaching the city aboard the Greyhound. Then it was the sky above which was purely blue with no indications of cloud. As contrasted with the sky, the inside of Joyce hostel in the downtown was dimly-lighted, the worn-out corridor was gloomy, and the counter clerk was indifferent to guests never smiling.
In addition, standing By the Willamette I was deeply impressed by the sharp contrast in color between the river enjoying the bright sunlight pouring down on its surface and steel-constructed Hawthorn Bridge. Portland seemed to be impressive in that the downtown of it showed a sharp contrast of light and the shadow.