I like to sit & watch the weather
slip between the spaces in the leaves.
I’m relearning the sounds of old voices –
my mother now the distant clink
of a glass set down on concrete. My father
the burn of cigar’s paper crinkling
to the blaze. I spend a minute waiting
for a cloud to inch into the space
I have set aside for it. What dominion
do I keep other than my own? I read
an article that said we are only
a few decades away from controlling
the simplest things with our minds,
no longer bound to movement & sound
to make the fire burst from stove, to switch
the light on. I cannot pass judgment
on what I don’t already know, but let me say this.
If that day comes, I will dedicate at least
an hour’s worth of time to remind myself
of sun, the perpetual rhythmic turning
of a world that gives us life & takes it
away, sometimes violent, sometimes shrill
with heartbreak, sometimes the brush of leaves
blowing over the dead. I will sit in my own isolation,
mouthing words I would otherwise forget:
love, thanks, feel, yes, no, please, please, please.
By Devin Kelly
Gulf Stream Magazine 