Waiting

July 4, 1993

Up in the corner –

window, doorway, wall –

sits the spider,

waiting,

in his web.

Outside, on the bench,

I sit, waiting,

for someone,

friend or stranger,

to come along.

A plop on the cobbles,

it’s not what I thought –

no birds, but just a branch

above, and then suddenly

a slender arrow slides across the stones,

as if on roller skates,

scales the sheerness of the plaster wall,

pauses, half hiding, in a crack,

waiting for me to go away

and I

waiting

to see what he will do…the lizard.

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Waiting.

One is always waiting.

Not just for the bus, the dentist,

for the boys to come to dinner.

Not just the mailman

or for spring to come again

(no! that’s anticipation –

there’s a difference!).

Waiting for a storm to break,

for the next flash of lightning.

Waiting in the deep of night

for calmer thoughts to drive away

the ever-building clouds of worry.

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Waiting for something to change – but what?

Waiting for Godot?

Who knows.

Waiting for what will come –

waiting in the end to stop waiting.

For the known,

and the unknown.

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Waiting is a sinking into the well

below the outer surface of oneself.

Is moving inward –

not giving, not receiving.

Just waiting.

Letting thoughts take shape.

The periods of waiting,

filled with smaller periods of waiting,

filled with other shorter periods

a box within a box, within a box,

a Matrioska,

with the biggest box of all

life itself,

encompassing the beginning and the end.

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And now, 2021, we’re waiting still.

To return to what we consider normality.

Waiting for an enemy to disappear.

One never stops

Waiting.

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