Bananas are famously yellow
but they are also very quiet.
Sometimes they are so quiet
that I forget they are there
until they turn black.
Equally quiet is a chair
but a chair is more still than quiet
when it isn’t being sat in,
so still in its form you have to wonder
if it has another dream entirely,
the dream of running through the forest
with the deer.
And as for the tree outside the window,
what I like best about that tree is
it is always in my window,
always in the same place
with the sky behind it.
And what I like about the window, right now is,
it is keeping the wind outside,
the wind that makes the branches of the tree move,
like an old stiff man, miming the wind.
What I like best about the wind
is how it sometimes meets me on the path,
as if it’s glad to see me.
But it loses patience when it sees
that I am keeping to the path
Whereas the path at least keeps
looking over its shoulder
to see if I am following.
I like that about the path,
that it waits for me
even when I stop, deep in thought
as quiet as a banana,
as still as a chair.
