Swirl
A while ago, I bought myself a snow globe. This one has a simple silver base inscribed with a poem by Basho. The glass sphere above is filled with water and bits of white confetti that swirl and settle after you shake the globe. Inside bare trees stand, naked, along the side of a snow-edged stream. There is a switch on the bottom that, if you flick it, plays the sound of wind, water...and loons.
One of the lightbulbs in this room has burned out. Ambient illumination dimmed. I'm listening to David Gray's cd, White Ladder. "Sail Away" is the song that is playing now. My snow globe is silent, the white inside settling.
I can smell lilies and hyacinth. It's two o'clock in the morning. The window is a black mirror.
I remember being at an outdoor concert once. It was in the Summer. Heat still glowed, even at night. The band played. I was in the grass with my friends...and thousands of others. At some point the sky opened up and poured down hard fat drops of rain. A torrent. A rush. I remember looking up and the rain was so hard and lush that I couldn't see through it. Just warmth and water falling in the outside air -- while music played and the crowd danced.
Things falling, or swirling, through the air (or whatever you are englobed by). For me, right now, it's music -- and these otherwise quiet hours. Maybe soon it will be dreams.
There are drifts, outside. And fragrance. Today, flecks of white swirled: great fluttering tumbles in the air. It looked just like snowflakes.
But they were flower petals.