Still Here, Seeing

Almost morning,

but not yet,

not quite.

*

It’s the quiet moment when

the sky is trying to decide

whether it should

become blue or stay

curled in its darker self a little

longer.

*

There is little sound,

truly, sincerely.

Just the soft ticking of a clock,

the occasional creak of

a floorboard settling, and

the breath you didn’t realize

you were holding.

*

Then—

light.

*

Just a sliver—

a shimmer caught in the rim

of the glass on the window.

Not enough to see clearly in darkness,

but enough to feel—

a thread pulling through the silence,

and does not tear

but tightens.

*

You grow still.

You almost move,

but something tells you

not yet.

*

Wait—

and watch.

*

The shimmer spreads.

Slow as thawing meat,

the light does not demand;

it reveals.

*

The dust in the air

is easier to see.

Not a sign of neglect—

but a sign of presence.

Every particle comes alive,

suspended

between falling and floating.

*

You think of something

from years ago.

A pond.

The breathless moment

before a fish meets the surface.

The sound of wind

passing through grass.

Your grandmother

pausing at the window

as if waiting for a thought

to finish arriving.

*

Then—

the memory vanishes.

Like dust in the air,

right in plain sight,

yet easily

forgotten.

*

This is the same—

when light meets dark,

it is the same.

*

Nothing breaks,

but something shifts.

*

A thought comes,

not loud, not new,

but clear.

*

You are here.

Still here,

seeing.

Still here,

breathing.

*

And that, somehow,

feels like a beginning.

~~~~~~~~~~

I apologize if this, and my previous attempt at free verse this method, have turned out poorly. It's my first few times trying to make a poem like this.

It's a bit of a struggle, even with multiple references of the formating. I might attempt one more before going back to acrostics but probably not, though, because this is hard; consider these few poems an experiment, to see if I can write them.