Quiet Time

When you are ill and laid up, you see the things that are always there, those things that you have not seen before with precision or even interest. They are the passing things, of no account. Clouds in their courses, the eye of the sun, now blinded, now piercing. You see the leaves on the small tree that was no more than a stick 6 months ago, now blooming, stretching prayerful palms to the nearest... heaven, breathing and breathed. A dragon fly sits on your knee, not knowing any better, and for once he is right. He seems to mean something. Everything, the smallest thing, seems to mean something. The mind of the breeze crosses arms on your chest, and then surrenders again to the incomparable sun, as much a component of your skin as of the heavens.