Saturday, February 21, 2009

The Birth of a Short Lived Poem

I lost a thought.

It happens. I was walking back from a test, it had gone better than I thought (which isn't saying much since I expected to fail completely) and most of all, no more tests for weeks and weeks and no studying to do for a whole weekend. It had been cold, but just as I stepped outside the door the sun went up, the whole glistening snow and imaginary birds singing, you know the story. Life was good to me for half an hour. So I had a thought.

I get thoughts when I do nothing, and am alone. Mostly it manifests when I walk, since walking is painfully boring, and I prefer to walk alone so I can keep my own pace and pretend I'm somewhere else so I won't notice how boring walking is, and also when I know exactly where I'm walking so I don't have to pay attention. Also when I'm walking in remote places where there aren't much people who can see me, because I need to "talk" to myself, move my lips at least to focus my thoughts into words.

Thus I walked home this shiny morning and I had a thought. A long, intricate thought, focused through a beautifully crafted rhyming poem. A thought that connected me to the rest of the world, to the sky, the snow and the reflecting surfaces of polished cars, to the morning light and the smoke and fumes. It was a simple poem, but a thought spun of the finest of threads in the hands of the most skilled goddess of fate.

I've lost the thought. It happens. It doesn't matter. A week, a month, a year from now I'll be walking alone down a road in the morning light, and I'll have another thought. Maybe the same thought. And while I wait for that, I guess I'll just keep myself busy.

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