morning quietly sheds night’s skein, thick
woolen clouds silver in their support, helping
to keep humming human dreams close
to our collective skittering heart. yesterday i
walked to the library, my route taking me past
this island town’s solitary residential retirement
home. an elderly man framed in top floor
window, i could not see him well, only
able to discern puff of cloud-white hair
absent everywhere but his ears. he, solitary
in his framing, and i, self-conscious
on my trundling legs, my feet
and their unknowable tread. i wanted to wave
at him, though i couldn’t see him well, to let him
know that i too am human, and despite the river
of memory in my swimming mind, i also exist
in the Present. i could not tell
if he was looking at me, my eyes
obscured by his ears, their bird nests of tufted hair,
and so i did not wave, fearing
the foolishness i would feel at prying myself
into his top floor framing. what rights do we have
as Human; do we rightly demand for health
care? is it acceptable to believe we have a right to
love? continuing on my library feet, all those bound
books, my hands remain at my sides and the elderly
man disappears. this morning light gathers itself, and i am
too late to wave at that man. a friend mocks me
for my persistent orbit of ocean and tide, in the thoughts
i commit to writing; the wave i hoped to give this
man, perhaps the ocean will allow it for me once
again. for this is Fall, and we are a species
of failure. for this is a round planet
on an oblong solar path, and we are given
rights to repeat.
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