The light in the invalid window was all the reason
An invalid needed to feel good about the day, about the days
In bed, quintessential nest of selfishness and sacrifice alike.
What's sadder, happier, sappier than being bed-ridden?
No place lonelier or more intimately social, no place more
Removed from or central to rotating casts of peopled planets.
This window faced the winter sun as squarely as the days
Allowed, low and straight south. Hanging plants basked
While just outside, the bare-twigged bushes glowed with snowmelt,
Rustled with hungry finches and sparrows. This
Could not last. All victories are pyrrhic, and before dawn
The heart could pound the invalid awake with fear
That the wind was up, the power had been shut off, that it was
Already the day of days, the one that would enter the ice.
Yesterday, after just such a predawn fright, after sun returned
And the heart had calmed for another hour, the invalid's daughter,
Back from a walk, fresh-faced from the cold, noticed, delighted,
The delicate imprint, the exquisite silhouette of feathers outspread
That had been left by the powdered wings of a bird
Who had hit the window in full flight, leaving behind a dusty angel.
Just so, but today the window spilling sun again, the warm bed,
And the reading of old poems praising the light in still life.
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