Sometimes a Mountain

Sometimes a Mountain

But imagine what it must be like before it all begins, while standing at a second floor office window, perhaps, while holding a mug of painfully strong coffee in one hand and in the other a glass of water. Imagine slowly pouring the water from the glass into the cracked dirt of an unknown or unnamable office plant left behind months before by someone who was laid off, someone whose position you recently filled. Imagine what it must look like to any others who happen to see you there, as if you are simply standing at the window to water the plant.

When the truth is of course that you are having a sort of bulletpoint moment.

The dwarfed trees spaced equal distance one from the other in their square plots up and down the sidewalk just outside the window have yet to bud. Are these dogwoods? No one seems to know. Through these trees, between the frame of the Ben Franklin Parking Tower on the left and the Marriott Hotel on the right, you can see the river, slow and brown and full of secrets. Beyond this river is the interstate and then more of the city queuing out from the city and much farther out sometimes a mountain.

Imagine seeing it if you can, on this clear mid-morning in winter, through leafless trees, between the tower and the hotel, past the river, the interstate, the city beyond the city