The day before Christmas there was a glorious silence.
Even the meth house next door closed down for the holiday.
The drunk racist bar owner did not come out of her home
with her hee-hee laughter filling the air with bad bourbon breath.
No trucks left their loud engines running as they banged
deliveries down long metal ramps. No car doors slammed.
No one cursed in East Side Terrace. No one broke a window.
No one played obscene rap music so loud it scrambled eggs.
Seventy degrees by noon, the third day of winter, a glorious quiet
and we sat on our porch, reminisced about Christmas, family
and friends, the dogs in the yard by the alley patiently perfect.
By nightfall, the moon shared the sky with a warm spring drizzle
and we settled down to dinner, in love, and then—the soft hum
of a cricket, the melody of songbirds, a whistle of wind and leaf.
No one anywhere could ask for anything so precious as this.
| Copyright © 2021 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively. |
I am truly stunned at the difference in or lives. I've never lived in a city bigger than Gainesville or Tallahassee, and they were pretty nice. We live in a suburb that used to be quiet but now a highway runs a block or two over. But still. I can sit in my back yard and not see a house, a road, nothing but trees, bushes, birds and butterflies. It's usually still pretty quiet. So what is precious to you, as it should be, is everyday for us. Don't get me wrong; mundane is highly under-rated. To me, cities are an unnatural way to live, but thenfolks don't always get a choice, do they. Glad you had a peaceful time.
ReplyDeleteAnd it lasted for three entire days!
ReplyDelete