The Hum Before Nothing

The window pane, a gray film over it,

catches the light just so, then loses it.

Hours collapse into themselves,

the same quiet hum from unseen shelves

or the refrigerator, always there.

A single fly, caught in the air,

beats its small, insistent head

against the glass, then rests, as if dead,

then starts again.

The slow, persistent rain

of dust motes in the single sun-strip,

a tiny, endless, silent drip

of time. My own thoughts slow,

begin to blur, where do they go?

The day is just a breath held long,

a note sustained, without a song.

It’s not peace, it’s just

the way the world returns to dust

while you are watching.