Openings - June 1 2025

 

Openings

June 1 2025

There are always openings.

Mice appear

as if life could arise

from inanimate matter.

There was the bat,

swooping and darting

this way and that

with acrobatic precision,

while I swatted at it comically

with an old whisk broom.

Creepy-crawlies, of course

which are everywhere;

as present

as the air we breathe,

so ubiquitous

we’ve long stopped noticing.

Cold drafts

leak through the window frames,

and postal mail

pushes through the narrow slot

expressly made for it,

accepting, unquestioning

whatever fits.

But even in a house

as sealed as a secret lab

where lethal microbes are grown

the world intrudes.

Strange ideas

contaminate the break room.

The news seeps in

and it’s mostly bad.

People smuggle in their crises

and personal struggles,

money trouble

love lives

politics.

There is no such thing

as hermetically sealed.

My windows are open, door unlocked.

Fresh air breezes in

with the smell of spring,

evergreen and loamy

and faintly floral

from the first early blooms.

While in summer

I hear birdsong and barking dogs,

the wind

softly stirring the leaves.

Although when it’s hard

the big flag snaps crisply

and I can hear it whistling in

through badly fitting windows

and under the door.

The mice have departed from their winter home,

leaving droppings

like a fond farewell,

dried-up little turds

scattered generously

as if to keep me guessing

where next.

Too bad mail rarely arrives;

I miss the short sharp sound

of the slot clanging shut.

While the bats are happy outside

where they belong,

eating on the wing

and sleeping upside-down.

Needless to say, the creepy-crawlies persist;

always here

no matter what.

The spider in the basement sink

continues to abide

in that inhospitable spot,

apparently immortal

and living on air.

He keeps me company,

sitting calmly

where he sat the day before,

occasionally raising a leg

or shifting half an inch.

Months ago, surprisingly

I saw some baby spiders,

tiny carbon copies

of their jet black father,

apparently having materialized

like cold morning dew

on a lush green lawn.

My arachnid Lothario,

even though I never saw a mate

and he hardly seemed the type.

The secret life of spiders

I will never know.

And the holes

they scurry in and out of

too small to keep closed.