Poetry and Writes

Fawn (WRITE)

*An untimed write while listening to Fawn (a song by Tom Waits). No prompt, except the music.*

The river runs by, through the forest. It will climb past here, through the hills, and to the mountains that turn their rocks over constantly in their hands. My world is small. I am not the river. I see what is immediate before me. I feel what is immediate within me.

Across the water, I see the baker's shadow passing by the window of his shop—there, then not; there, then not. At last he opens the door and flaps a dusty rug over the river's calm current.

My porch swing trembles. An autumn leaf falls from an auburn-haired maple and changes its path to dance away from the smoke of my pipe.

The colors of a changing season dapple the river. I think I see the baker's dust sinking into the water. Its reflection clears. The baker ties his apron to the bough of an old tree. The apron is worn. I see its years marked lovingly upon it in the shape of flour-clapped palms. I watch it flutter in the breeze, shivering among the leaves—which occasionally fall in mesmerizing patterns, flight as choreographed as geese soaring home for the summer.

In our living room, the remains of a fire cool, though the heat of the coals lingers, still warm. My memory of you is like that. It is like the hearth's glass too, tainted dark, but still I can see through it. Still the pane is warm as well. Still I can see and feel you. I see your face upon its curve sometimes.

The baker retires into his shop. My pipe smoke makes the prettiest curls against the sky. Leaves loop more now, and the river still runs by.