#MIDDLEBURY
Boketto
Susan Rich
Outside my window it’s never the same –
some mornings jasmine slaps the house, some mornings sorrow.
There is a word I overheard today, meaning lost
not on a career path or across a floating bridge:
Boketto – to stare out windows without purpose.
Don’t laugh; it’s been too long since we leaned
into the morning: bird friendly coffee and blueberry toast. Awhile
since I declared myself a prophet of lost cats – blind lover
of animal fur and feral appetites. Someone should tag
a word for the calm of a long marriage. Knowledge
the heat will hold, and our lights remain on – a second
sight that drives the particulars of a life: sea glass and salt,
cherry blossoms and persistent weeds. What assembles in the middle
distance beyond the mail truck; have I overlooked oceans,
ignored crows? I try to exist in the somehow, the might still be –
gaze upward to constellations of in-between.
About this poem
“The Japanese word ‘boketto’ describes something so familiar to me, it’s as if a piece of myself has been returned. I’ve altered the definition by including that the ‘gazing without purpose’ needs to happen by a window.” – Susan Rich
About Susan Rich
Susan Rich is the author of “Cloud Pharmacy” (White Pine Press, 2014). She teaches at Highline College and lives in Seattle.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2016 Susan Rich. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
