Monday, March 16, 2009

Songbird


Stuck.
A frightening place.
A terrifying place, to me.
A place of no hope,
no spark, no breath -
just stale air,
a cabin closed
for too long, all summer -
that 'hot, August, steal the air from your lungs'
kind of stale air that
has not passed over
a living thing.

That is the odor of stuck:
stale, without breath, without
the touch of any living thing.

Passivity suffers
upon itself.
It empties its pockets, turns them
inside out,
and waits.
Endlessly.

Outside this place,
the birds are praising.
Praising no one,
no thing.
Just praising.


2 comments:

Sandi said...

Oh, yeah, that's what stuck is like. And when I'm stuck, the praising birds are just flat out annoying. I especially like the description of stuck as stale air. Certainly have inhaled more than my fair share of that. Thanks for sharing.

el poquito said...

Hey Sandi,
Yeah, I understand the annoyance. At the same time, for me, the birds singing pulls me outside of that room with oppressive air - if only for a moment - and when I'm 'stuck' in that room, I'm looking for every avenue to get out - or at least to crack the windows open a little bit. Sometimes, just having the window cracked open is a HUGE relief - and there I am with my nose pressed into that bitty crack of open window, trying to suck in the 'outside air.

Thanks for dropping by Sandi and always sharing your view from where you stand. Reassures me I'm not just a crazy man baying at the moon. Well, maybe I still am, but I guess it reassures me I'm not alone on that hill!