Sunny Day

The Boomer hears the Harleys and the punk cars on the road

in visible proximity through the windows of his front door.

He doesn't see them now because of the Navajo blanket

over the windows upon which the sun beats, bounding

from the white wall of his landlady's office

between the road and his front door.

It is early afternoon, and the bikers and punks are celebrating

perhaps their forced vacation from job or school, or they're

enjoying their youth or exercising their rage, or using

the roar of engines to mask their discomfort of

instinctive anticipation this viral scourge

will advance their own generation.

Or maybe, the Boomer accedes, it’s only the sunny day,

denying the gloom of abysmal news and its rules,

lifting all moods, including his own behind

the Navajo blanket blocking the sun and

muffling the boisterous sounds

of the exercised engines

through his front door.

The Boomer also wonders if his elation is not more attuned to

the fragility of his position on the spectrum of susceptibility,

the heightened clarity, appreciation, and the gratitude

for one more day--sunny, rainy, windy, or gray--as

the poets are wont to say of those condemned. 

 

                                                                                m.d. paust