8 Minutes
Feb 25 2023
The rug
faded by the sun.
Light
that pours in unobstructed
through the south-facing window
where it's lain for years.
Photons
which managed to escape
its vast gravitational pull,
then travelled
at the speed of light
for 8 earth minutes.
150 million k
through cold airless space
in a straight unwavering line;
the time it takes
to brush my teeth
make a sandwich
change the bed.
A monumental journey
and its ignominious end,
here
in the vibrant reds
and tightly woven wool
of my treasured Persian rug.
Which has faded unevenly,
lying half exposed
and half in permanent shadow.
Why I never rotated it, I'll never know.
But imagine
it's like everything else —
the familiar things
we no longer notice,
the incremental change
too slow to register.
And now that I have
it stares me in the face
day after day
like a silent rebuke.
One of the many minor regrets
and things beyond repair
a lifetime accumulates.
And the more I obsess
the easier it becomes
to forget about the major ones
that really mattered.
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