Day 462: An Afternoon
∴
there are bubbles in view.
i’m reclining in dark, indoor rooms
and my children are out –
i can hear them through the screens –
blowing the clear spheres
up into view,
above the gridded panes of my study,
so they should dance in the somber pre-storm breeze.
Grandma naps in the nooks of the home.
dinner will need to be made soon.
i remember this more than anything, as a child:
just peeling out of midday slumbers
and hearing the tin snap and slide of knives
being stacked upon themselves,
and a smell of onions sizzling –
as that’s the base of,
well,
everything –
it makes you cry
to cut,
but everything tastes better for it.
this, i think,
is freedom,
as we humans have fought for it
for eons:
to cook onions
and watch children make bubbles,
and listen from solemn, secret places
while the corn grows tall into summer.
it is not an ambitious goal,
when you think of it,
but nearly incapable of keeping
through the years.
it’s as if freedom calls upon strife,
not knowing its simple miracle
and forgetting
that it was earned
in harder times
and by a hurting-er people.
∴
