The Nonproductive Net

– With Apologies to Walt -

Out My Window

I sit by my window and look out at the world passing, At the parade of humanity flowing beneath my gaze.

I see the woman clutching flowers at the cemetery gate, Her grief folding into the worn creases she’s carried for years, like origami. No one to unfold her sorrow, no resolution to her loss, Just the endless remaking of pain into something she can carry.

I see the man who stops to help a stranger gather spilled groceries, No cameras rolling, no praise forthcoming, no witness but me and my window, His kindness a pebble in water, rippling outward without applause, His day continuing unnamed, his goodness unrecorded.

I see the comedian on the street corner making the crowd roar, His jokes like bright wrapping paper concealing something broken, Each laugh hiding the crack in his voice, the tremor in his hands, The trauma wearing a party hat, dancing for spare change.

I see the woman screaming at a clerk, her face twisted, Her rage a language desperate to be translated, Behind her fury, the eviction notice, the sick child, the empty fridge, Her anger asking not for judgment but for understanding.

I see all these stories, Threads in a larger fabric; all of us weavers.

I see billboards looming over the street, selling images of division, The careful engineering of hatred for profit and power, People turned against their neighbors by those who count the coins, The invisible hands that plant discord and harvest despair.

I see all this, and slowly my window fogs with breath, The glass becomes a mirror, my own eyes staring back at me. I cannot tell if I am watching or being watched, If I am truly seeing the world, or if I have been looking only at myself all along.

Am I part of the healing, or just another observer of the wound?