Silent Mind and the Midday Shade

The words were always there.

Laid out

And arranged

Like the gleaming silver cutlery

On the pressed linen tablespread.

Surgically sterile

Tools to cut,

Slice,

Chop,

Tear,

Stir,

Scoop,

And dish out

Reality in more palatable

Versions of the truth.

They were blunt in their sharpness.

But they were always there.

I never thought of them.

Never repeated them

A hundred-and-twenty-two times

Each day

As I scrubbed myself down with soap.

They were always there,

Dancing,

Even before the thoughts

Remained unthought of.

Like the shadows

Dancing on the tablecloth

As the trees romanced with the midday sun.

As if that shadow play

Had started much before

I was called over for lunch.

Or maybe even before the sun even rose today.

The mist of memories

Fall down as worded raindrops

And spill ink

Into a dictionary of incoherence.

I sat in the shade

Of that redundant romance

And saw a rainbow

Staining the midday sky.