Closing the Lid
In front of the finished meal, I closed the lid of the flower-patterned side-dish container. The morning is winding down.
Stand lamp
It's morning, but I turned on the lamp like it was evening. The sunlight was already in the room.
Yellow Light
The sun sinks low and lies long across the floor. I rest my back on it and wait for the sound of you opening the door.
Knowing When to Close an Open Mouth
From the mud nest hanging at the edge of the eaves, the chicks poke out their heads and open their mouths. Yellow beaks gape wide toward the sky. Standing beneath them, I found myself looking up for a long time. At some point I had stopped waiting for anything, and grown used to simply rising when morning came and lying down when the sun set. But seeing those small lives throw their whole bodies open, calling for something, I wonder if I was once like that too. Closing a mouth that had forgotten what it called for, I went back inside the house. But when do those chicks learn to close those gaping mouths, I wonder. Last evening, watching the laundry outside the window fluttering in the wind, I found myself thinking about that. By the time the chicks close their mouths, they must be learning to swallow the insects their mother brings. And even so, all evening long, watching the rippling laundry, I practiced swallowing something on my own. At dawn the laundry began to dry. There was a moment when the wet cloth lay down meekly in the wind, once, and after that nothing stirred. Beneath the eaves the chicks were still asleep, and the morning air was seeping in between their open beaks.
In the Reed Bed
A reed warbler sings among the reeds. The sound is clear, but however wide I open my eyes, I can't see the bird. The wind brushes through the reeds and passes. I stood there and waited until the sound was gone. Even after, the reeds kept rustling. I turned and walked along the lakeshore. Behind me the warbler was still singing. The sun was high. My shadow stayed short at my feet, then touched the water's edge and trembled. It was a day on which nothing happened. I stopped walking and listened again. The sound of reeds and the sound of water, and somewhere between them, the warbler's song went on. With that sound in my ears, I walked on slowly.
Feet Sunk in the Current
The valley stream brushes past my ankles and flows on down. Where the current touches, a small fish passes by. In that moment, watching the fish brush over my foot and go on down as if nothing had happened, I think that I might be allowed to pass like that too. Once, I was waiting for a bus beside a valley stream. Someone perched on the rock across the way had taken off their shoes and put their feet in the water. Until the bus came, that person never lifted their head. That person, feet in the water while waiting for the bus, must have been like the fish that brushed over my foot. Watching the current come down, I want to sit on that rock too and put my feet in for a while. Morning light trembles on the surface, and under the water are the fish's shadow and the tops of my feet, together. I didn't move for a long time. Only where the fish had passed did the water ripple and settle again. That settling holds me a long while. The water still brushes past my ankles and flows on down. With my feet in that current, I spend a morning chasing nothing at all.