Patricia Prime
Te Atatu South, Auckland, New Zealand

View from the Window

I want to write: "Outside nothing moves but the rain," that almost invisible falling veil—but after I've looked at the leafy mass of trees, the scarlet bougainvillea, the tip of a Norfolk pine, the orange orchids in their pots on the veranda, I become aware of nearer, flimsier things: the twigs waving on an apple tree, a fly dancing down the windowpane, a flock of sparrows in a pear tree, and a distant flag in a neighbour's garden flapping from left to right.

The rain ceases, the wet bead curtain is drawn aside and movement stops. A rainbow appears in the sky, a ray of sunshine pinpoints my writing hand, birds begin to sing as if on command. I write at last, "Nothing moves," but it's not entirely true.

yes to everything possible
no to the distant past
we laughed    we loved    you left
cut with surgical precision
until nothing now remains

crossing the horizon
to manipulate the past
I recall    I question    I muse
silent, not moving
I wait to see what the future holds

rays of light a saving grace
caged as I am in pain
intricate    intimate    immobile
I might not be paying attention
to the poetry by which I live