Realignment

"Is this real
Is this real
This life I am living?"
                      --Tlingit or Haida song

I tread the empty sidewalk
My brown-laced shoes pass
along the concrete slabs
while my head hurts from things
I have forgotten a year from now

The windows reflect a face
of someone I cannot recognize
I have so much I need to do
trying not to think of purpose
I look down at my brown laces

At home an old man sits in peace
under a lamp on page two hundred
or three hundred sixty-seven
Perhaps I do not want to wait
until I am ninety-eight for that

What serenity of soul to stop
and take the laced shoes off
and discover solace in the solitude
I need escape to a soundless place
For in stillness silence is something

In the break of day's beginning
no sidewalks no shoes just soul
with a book or without a book
in thoughtfulness in prayer
in these moments I remember

--

{dm}