By
Sam Burnside
written 11 – 11 – 2004
remembering 8 – 10 – 2001
My room is drained of light.
I sit by the window, reading.
Outside, the sky is grey,
the white clouds frozen.
Then, a brown leaf,
its pale face turned away
and veiled by one curling shoulder,
scuttles along the path.
A tribe of others, eyes averted,
each one hunch-backed, speed after.
Suddenly, sunlight is here, without ceremony:
it quickens the grey day;
it backlights the first stribbings of rain;
the air is a wind, is a storm, is a tempest:
the leaves dance,
they waltz, they
foxtrot and tango,
hop, skip and boogie.
The day is a symphony
of bits and pieces.
The world is salt and pepper and grit.