All Things Mundane (A Poem)

Perhaps it all began when the rains started

what they would call the Monsoons in certain

desert areas, the storms that come after

strong winds full of dust, pebbles and rough slivers

of plants and trees

flow down the city streets.

There is a certain silent cacophony

sometimes in memory, white lines of surf still speak

when you're moving in a vehicle with the windows up.

And so it must be this way sometimes, driving along

through the quiet, the white lights of oncoming drivers

approaching and slipping into your rearview mirror like small red atoms.

Outside, the sun is shining, there are people in the park across

the way and the town clock above the café with the round and

tiled tables casts shadows through the short trees around it.

It could be spring or fall, some season when the rains are appropriate

and always make me think of your quaint voice.

I cannot hear what you are saying, but I know it is always succinct and eloquent;

the noise the moon makes when

it is slightly embraced by the azure cirrus clouds around it.

There are the noises of laughter outside my window.

The clinking of glasses from the restaurant

which come to me like a diminutive breeze.

The hum of the lights from the sign on the theatre marquee

whose screens hold pictures I will never see -- at least with you in the audience.

And always the monsoons, the winds followed by

the strong rains which touch the city streets

andthe water that flows through the thoroughfares and

the grasses of houses with silver faucets that drip water.

Water in crystal glasses and the water from the city hydrants

and the dead volcanic crater lakes and

the water frozen at the bottom of the world and

the water which is here now in front of me

and was there at the beginning of the world,

a shallow pool in the void,

waiting for that one voice to speak it to life