Contemplations from a Warm Room

Yesterday.

I saw a blackbird

on the lowest branch of an older sapling.

He was flirting between several branches.

A handsome crow stood right below him,

just moving his head

and regarded the bird much smaller than he

as it was moving around.

Tonight.

I walked down a street

Five blocks away, though I’d never been on it before.

A warm house had a clean porch

and a rainbow drawn in childish finger paints on the window.

Inside was a woman in ankle socks and a red sweatshirt

changing a lightbulb,

and there was no sound coming out of the house.

The moment.

I am now in my brown chair

Mulling how sticky humid nights

with a hint of dew, or relief, or odor

are the right environment for the mind.

The air is heavy, the atmosphere is active

- yet still.

It carries the live music from the clamoring restaurant,

amplifies the waves of the river

which is below the town with its nightlife.

It is timeless,

stuck in a moment and eternal

yet always breaking at the unrelenting astringent daylight.

Dirty things, hidden things,

and deliciously powerful things

happen when nothing else is happening or stealing;
Pointing contemplatives to ever shorter phrases.

The instant of the habitation of music is the back drop to all of it.

I’d like to make it.

A resonant note that lasts

as long as the string has the will.

But the beauty of the moment - the now

that is all.

Is this another potential poem?  Maybe.

Isn’t a poem just the transcription of a few heartbeats anyway?  We are joined, present and future in one word. 

The great momént.




The stunning photograph above is from the amazing collection at thedailyportsmouth.com.