briefly, while procrastinating

From my office desk I watch dark leaves on our outstretched maple greet the neighbors' cherry branches, their gossip unheard through closed windows. Blue polygons of sky show between leaf clusters, while ground shadows mingle with tanned August light. Muted riffs by cars play half a block north on Maxwell Avenue; faint sirens wail along River Road. Prominent and steady, a wall clock ticks behind me near the door. Tim's great-uncle left it to the family, its face from a tree slab - a burl? maybe driftwood. Uncle Harold sanded it smooth and covered it with clear resin before attaching numbers and the pointing hands. Heartbeat movements of the second hand remain constant during a text-buzz from my phone, the jangle of our hallway landline.

I barely remember Uncle Harold, whom I met probably once before he died. His wife, Virgie, whose death preceded his, liked to write. On our shelf sits her meditative booklet, All Things to Enjoy. These pieces of their lives that we do enjoy remain part of this place, our sensory life in motion.