The Far Window
In a picture of a distant house,
one window shines.
We can say there is light.
We cannot yet read
the letter on the table.
A song has taken shape in sound.
That matters.
The space once occupied by a plan
now holds something
that can be played.
But a waveform is a skyline
seen from far away.
It shows where something rises,
where it falls;
it cannot tell us
which words reached the room.
There is another kind of work
after making:
to listen without lending the song
the clarity we hoped for.
Did the first line arrive whole?
Did the last word have time?
Could a stranger follow
the thought across its pauses?
Those questions wait
for an actual ear.
Meanwhile, the lit window
keeps its modest fact.
A curtain might hide the writing.
Distance might blur it.
The lamp might be perfectly placed.
Move closer when you can.
Change one thing if needed.
Keep the earlier version
so the difference has a witness.
The expected rhyme comes home
carrying a different word.
Perhaps it belongs.
Perhaps the line needs another turn.
Outside the imagined house,
light crosses the dark.
Inside,
a letter still asks
to be read.
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