Thursday, November 3, 2022

when it was not


I am drinking coffee looking out the window 
at the oaks and maples
as I have done thousands of times. 
This is morning in my house. 

But I was not the first to drink coffee here -
there was a different table and different chairs
when I walked through with my agent
and the Parkers were still making their home here.

I could look at records at Town Hall to see 
who was their before them, 
the chain of property rights extending back
to when this spot was only oaks and poplars
and no table to sit at, or window to look through. 

But there are no records of the future for me to look up 
to whom I sold it to
in some year 
hopefully long from now -
or perhaps my children are listed as the sellers. 
The buyers names are not yet written in history.

Perhaps they are getting dropped off at elementary school this morning,
she is wearing a yellow jacket, the color of fall maple leaves;
he has collected acorns to show his teacher. 
They do not even know each other yet.

They are coming down Time's road to this house,
and they will sit here with their morning coffee someday,
looking out this window
at the spindly oak I am looking at now -
the one that has just stuck its head up past the rhododendrons -
which by then will have grown into its oakish majesty. 

They will know it was not always so,
but they will not remember when it was not. 

Audio at 



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