A Calm Leaf

A calm leaf upon a summer breeze;
Elegant, it moves with effortless ease.
Be like the leaf, my child dearest;
With graceful strength face challenges nearest.
Raise thyself from thy low knees;
And to the future, hold the keys.

Silent Things

The last six entries have been from a cycle I wrote over a couple of days a while ago, titled 'Silent Things'.  They detail several ordinary, every day things in the world.  Things that people don't notice.  They're all things that have some particular importance to me - things in which I find a moment of calm and a moment of the divine, for lack of a better word.  If you've been following them (and I doubt anyone has), thank you for your time.  If you've come across this later, you can click the Silent Things tag at the bottom of this post to read all of them.  Thanks for reading.
And always
Listen to the Silent Things.

Stones (in the ground)

Together, they are orange

It is not the same orange as one might call the fruit

But it is an orange still

The orange is the impression one gets when one looks at them

Looks at them as a whole

It is the image they want you to see.

But stop.  Stare a while.  And see.

Among the sea of orange,

One sees specks of greens.

And then reds.

And then blues.

Until one realises that the orange is not the colour of all

It is not even the colour of most.

Each and every stone in the ground

In the carpet that soaks up the rain

Each has its own colour.

They are not orange.

It is simply the colour that binds them.

Window

A cold breeze is in the air.

The only light is from the streetlamp that finds itself

In an intersection of back street paths;

Its brightness shatters into a thousand blurred dots.

It’s raining.

Houses bound both sides of the thin alleyway,

Their rooves seeming level with the glass.

Sometimes they are covered in snow or frost

And look like fields of white.

Mostly it is just the slate which one sees

The one, single, continuous colour.

Its continuity brings peace.

The houses extend along to each side

To the right, cut off by a road

To the left, they stretch seemingly forever

Only by leaning out can one see the end.

There is something uncertain about that place.

Only by reaching out

By creating a risk

Can one see the end.

If one does not intervene, then they truly are endless.

Magical.

Moss grows in the garden below

In contrast with the bare concrete floor

It is tough, but the plants still find a way

Working up through cracks and crevices.
It climbs up the wall.

Atop the wall,

One often sees a cat.

Not a single cat, but a different cat each time

They traverse the garden walls with ease

Their balance perfect.

They mark the serenity of that place.

Stones (in the wall)

They are set into the brick

Though who knows how

Each is smooth

Weathered by hundreds, maybe thousands of years

Years of water passing

Of tides

Of rain just like this.

Each holds a different colour

Some are bright green

Deep blues

Solemn blacks

Some wear their colours on the outside

Making their true selves known to the world.

Others keep their colours close to their hearts

You can see only small specks of their colours.

These ones hide close into the wall

They are afraid to come out

But in them, one can still see the colours

No matter how much they try to hide it

One can still see their beauty.

Moss (Reprise)

The moss that grows on the side,

It is not like that which grows on the top.

Where valleys and fields cap the wall, the moss in the side

It grows in cracks,

In gaps in the brick.

It clings to the hidden places

Instead of dominating, it fills

Smooths over

Augments.

In many ways it’s easier to see oneself in the moss of the side;

A person doesn’t control entire landscapes;

A person fits into a structure.

They build on that structure.

Like the moss does.

It is still beautiful.

Streetlamp

The scattering of streetlight makes a thousand stars

Each one a reflection of a tiny stone

Each stone soaked through and through

The water shining its surface

And making constellations in the light polluted night.

The glow is warm,

Reflecting in puddles and off of windows
Refracting and changing and yet always staying the same

It adds a sepia filter to the one’s thoughts

On such a serene night.

Its brightness lights the path before one’s feet

Marking the way through the otherwise directionless darkness

A darkness where each road leads off into the void

And every footfall can be a misstep.

It has been there for so long

That it has seeped into our culture.

It is artificial through and through

And yet feels like it brings one closer to nature.

It is comforting.

Moss

Moss grows in cracks in the wall

In the spaces between the bricks.

It is green, so green as to capture the mind.

The moss that caps the wall, it is as a valley,

Curving down smoothly,

forming

dips

and mounds.

In this miniature world,

The concrete is as mountains.

It towers up above the green of the moss

Though occasionally a tendril reaches up above it

A tendril which peaks the bricks

To which they claim.

Tiny blades

Like

Grass,

They emerge from the endless fields

Small trees

Topped with small balls of the luminous.

The meadows are dotted with flowers

Spots of yellow, almost gold.

They paint the moss

They make it real.

They tie it to the universe.