Somewhere in Indiana

April 9th 2024

I woke from a mid-day nap

to an oddly quiet darkness

where the only evidence of life

was in the sound of the inhale

and exhale of my own breath.

I stood to my feet, reaching

into the air before me, but my

hands came up empty, and I

began to wonder, desperately

and endlessly, where on earth

the light had gone. It has left

us, was my only conclusion.

Which, for a moment, was true.

An then, a mourning dove began

to coo and I froze in place,

wondering where he perched,

until the shadow of his feathered

head bobbed beside me. A sliver

of light had begun to split

through the atmosphere, filling

the space around me, as the

second rising of the sun breathed

life into the lungs of the sparrows

and the plants that unfurled

new leaves and the dove, who

still continued to sing. I looked

upward and then at my watch.

Three-eleven. And then we

danced, the dove and I, with the

rhythm of the sun and the moon.