While the Clock Ticks in the Next Room …
January 15th, 2006Save as PDF
While the Clock Ticks in the Next Room…
A seagull pecks a clamshell
on a windswept beach.
Slouching in a leather club chair,
an old man lights his pipe.
On a grand piano
a vase of flowers fills the air.
In a library scholars sit at long oak tables,
searching for the very thing I seek.
We do not acknowledge one another,
we are not a fellowship.
From time to time I hear the shuffle
of a page being turned, an exasperated murmur
as another trail goes dead.
Plumes of light advance across the room,
grow longer, dim. An armchair screeches
as it’s pushed back from a desk.
I see a reader move with stiff reluctance
toward a door marked EXIT.
The door shuts noiselessly behind him
and the lights go out
as if extinguished by a giant’s breath.
We sit together in the darkness
and we wait.
