I had seen him several times passing in that street: an elderly homeless man, with paper and pen, reading or writing or thinking. I would pass by in a hurry on my motorbike, in the frenetic traffic, but in that corner I had to slow down to take another road and therefore while driving I had the time to observe better and ask myself what he was writing.
Over the years, I have seen several homeless people write and mark infinite numbers, or hypnotize themselves with obsessive drawings of circles and circles, or underline old words in old articles of old newspapers.
But he looked different. He wrote with confidence what appeared to be complete sentences.
Passing by one morning I see that he sells poems. Great. I stop-park-buy. A publisher had helped him print a book out of his poems. A small book with many grammar mistakes. Great.
Escaped from a war, passed in inhospitable lands, images in the eyes.
He lays out in the sun and writes poems and love phrases.
A great lesson.