March 14, 2017

how to write about stillness

Not the kind, exactly, of aftermath, though the felled trees
along the riverbank offer instruction of a necessary surrender.
Not the empty seats of a restaurant in the off-season, or the echo-less
vacancy of the town square after the circus of the Saturday market,
though their silence hints, importantly, of the narrative that was. The clouds, thick
on this Tuesday morning, appear unmoving, but that’s not it either; the forecast
tells otherwise. So what can be said about this brittle skin of vigilance, the hazy tint
washing over these edgeless hours of waiting? My father’s garden grows while, in a distant
hospital bed, his hands rest on antiseptic sheets. Each morning, something extraordinary
is taking place, unseen, at the roots of all our lives. Maybe that’s something of a beginning.

Maya Stein1 Comment