Fall Morning in Prospect Park

22ndFeb. × ’08

I catch myself
talking to the toaster
coaching “you’re not done,”
turning up the heat, slowly
learning the insignificance
of buttons.

I start to think,
if you were here
you might think I’ve lost
my mind,
only there is no you
who might actually think that.

There is the toaster,
who with some patience,
was coaxed to make me smile.

I have a hundred papers to grade,
thousands of words to consider,
constant curiosity,
who will notice, what changes,
where periods go,
how meaning is made.

Exhausted by the thought,
I take a walk—
a pack of roller bladders
stay in stroke,
a tornado of leaves
wakes behind a cop car,
a girl stands to pedal her bike,
a plane echoes in the grass,
a man smiles at me,
another plays saxophones.

There is so perspective—
you can hear a baby here
and a father cry, clutch, all at once
because the rest is even louder,
this land of no comparison
where shadows haunt.

To feel alone is to hear
everything, which is not bad,
only windy where we all must be both
together and separate at once.

Leaves turn,
soon it will be cold.
Pumpkins will patch us through
this October of lonesome mornings,
scattered holidays, little right here,
right now. Amidst change
I sit to think, if there is anything,
I could teach you.

I would like to show
how fleetingly beautiful it is
to be here, to notice, to know.

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