Written by the Window

At my desk I remember

looking through another:

fluid light, now and then soft rain,

yellow leaves strewn along the wind’s arc.

Between the lapping, broken rooftiles,

a green and eastward creep of moss,

grassblades tender as infant’s hair

tickling autumn’s armpit.

Below, the hen jabbering

with her chicks. On the long slate beside the well,

a neighbor’s clogs,

their wooden clatter.

I’d watch rainwater slide

leaping from the roof.

Spring was never dry.

The one clear patch of sky

surrounded bit by bit, sodden

as a paper sack before bursting.

I’d sit at my old desk, practicing characters,

mind adrift. The scent of warm ink,

the waft of magnolias,

dyed the landscape black and white.

As light drained,

greens deepened, browns grew heavy, ochres thinned.

Shadows melded dark and light, swallowing

till the real fled the unreal.

Now beside my keyboard,

dense November rain.

On the windowsill, a feather of light.

Beyond the glass, broken visions

laced with childhood’s wish.

How sad it seemed,

bound to my lessons,

thinking they would never end.