haibun || Sheila E. Murphy

There was this [conversation about air] when freely breathing held then gone. Perhaps the quiet fed our fealty, when a moment lapsed. I heard a jackhammer remove the  fragments in the pool. Our weather, wholly-owned, relaxed, grew windless, cool, awhile. When one continues walking, anything may have been missed. Only a monologue inhibits sense. I lurk, you lurk, s/he lurks, beside the garden. Let us pray for precis any time we fast. I will have mercied what you wore, what you observed, where you left off. At storebought stones. Any point, perfected for a start or close. What matters is what cannot lose itself with arbitrary poise. A fact almost convinces of what has been conveyed. This bluebird, any moment now, the Persian cat of eighteen pounds that slides along a row of wooden fences. With beauty, noticed, by a neighbor who in general absorbs. And speaks invented chemistry, as though pronunciation were not work. Then ventures places where another person stalls. I take my life and recognize completeness in each strand, regardless of potential for mistakes. The very beauty one could not invent without an accidental veering toward a place unknown, and what would happen, what does happen as one hastens to discover what will be.
 
Known commodity, this tulip of a color midway between harshless red and yellow moderato, let us pray