Windows (Again)

Confession: my cousin and I once sneaked downhill to peer into the windows of a neighbor's house to see what we could see. I had not read Harriet, the Spy, and he most certainly had not. But I had read Nancy Drew mysteries, so I fancied myself a detective of domestic life -- others' domestic life. The two of us wrote (maybe even only once) a neighborhood newspaper, featuring what we imagined might have happened in our grandparents' former house.

For me now, windows shine most without people like these stained glass panes in a chapel door, sunlight splashing their colors on a dark wall.

I don't need a story -- fictional or factual. The windows are enough.

Openings

Earlier this month, when the death of art critic and writer John Berger was announced, I remembered watching and then later reading his (for me) revolutionary Ways of Seeing.  Anyone who saw even the first 45 seconds of Episode 1 must have felt as shocked as I: this was something new on television, something worth watching because it challenged and rewarded the viewer. 

I felt a shift in me then (as I did when I saw Jacob Bronowski's Ascent of Man, Carl Sagan's Cosmos, and James Burke's Connections). All opened my mind to ways of thinking -- about art and culture, science and the universe, technology and human inventiveness -- that formal education never adequately reached.

With the latest news suggesting that federal funding may be ended for the Public Broadcasting Service, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities; with the horrific images of terrorists destroying historic world treasures; with this country's accelerated focus on data-driven testing in education as opposed to deep learning, I long for public discourse that elevates and honors the beautiful, majestic, mysterious creativity and imagination of the species.

Doors and windows, opening and opening, one into another.

Who says windows must be cleaned?

Not me.

Robley, the Spy

I
Artisan Depot

"Thank you for your service, sir, to this country."

Silence. The elderly veteran looked abased.

"Let's hope we make it great again."


II
St. Agnes' Church

Smudged windows, sheet music, organ, street vista, fall color.

III

When I walk, I enjoy seeing inside from the outside.

Why clean the windows again

when they look like this as sun descends?

Reprieve

through another's
windows elsewhere
blinded and curtained
faint light
darkness
welcome silence

Time of Outside In

The woods are turning, and so the year. With them, I move from outside in to gaze through windows, as if two spaces were three -- outside, inside, glass plane.

The Months

by Linda Pastan

January

Contorted by wind,

mere armatures for ice or snow,

the trees resolve

to endure for now,

they will leaf out in April.

And I must be as patient

as the trees—

a winter resolution

I break all over again,

as the cold presses

its sharp blade

against my throat.

February

After endless

hibernation

on the windowsill,

the orchid blooms—

embroidered purple stitches

up and down

a slender stem.

Outside, snow

melts midair

to rain.

Abbreviated month.

Every kind of weather.

March

When the Earl King came

to steal away the child

in Goethe’s poem, the father said

don’t be afraid,

it’s just the wind. . .

As if it weren’t the wind

that blows away the tender

fragments of this world—

leftover leaves in the corners

of the garden, a Lenten Rose

that thought it safe

to bloom so early.

April

In the pastel blur

of the garden,

the cherry

and redbud

shake rain

from their delicate

shoulders, as petals

of pink

dogwood

wash down the ditches

in dreamlike

rivers of color.

May

May apple, daffodil,

hyacinth, lily,

and by the front

porch steps

every billowing

shade of purple

and lavender lilac,

my mother’s favorite flower,

sweet breath drifting through

the open windows:

perfume of memory—conduit

of spring.

June

The June bug

on the screen door

whirs like a small,

ugly machine,

and a chorus of frogs

and crickets drones like Musak

at all the windows.

What we don’t quite see

comforts us.

Blink of lightning, grumble

of thunder—just the heat

clearing its throat.

July

Tonight the fireflies

light their brief

candles

in all the trees

of summer—

color of moonflakes,

color of fluorescent

lace

where the ocean drags

its torn hem

over the dark

sand.

August

Barefoot

and sun-dazed,

I bite into this ripe peach

of a month,

gathering children

into my arms

in all their sandy

glory,

heaping

my table each night

with nothing

but corn and tomatoes.

September

Their summer romance

over, the lovers

still cling

to each other

the way the green

leaves cling

to their trees

in the strange heat

of September, as if

this time

there will be

no autumn.

October

How suddenly

the woods

have turned

again. I feel

like Daphne, standing

with my arms

outstretched

to the season,

overtaken

by color, crowned

with the hammered gold

of leaves.

November

These anonymous

leaves, their wet

bodies pressed

against the window

or falling past—

I count them

in my sleep,

absolving gravity,

absolving even death

who knows as I do

the imperatives

of the season.

December

The white dove of winter

sheds its first

fine feathers;

they melt

as they touch

the warm ground

like notes

of a once familiar

music; the earth

shivers and

turns towards

the solstice.