Today I stood in the garden for nearly fifteen minutes.
Just standing, just feeling, just looking.
It’s a windy day, very windy, the best kind of day in Texas.
I stood near next door’s fence,
with their tall trees
and their line of fir trees
along the back. I envy them their yard.
They have the tall trees,
they have the line of fir trees
along the back. We have only
the wooden fence, and drivers in trucks can easily see in.
But I stood, very still,
more still than I can be normal,
two hands around my coffee mug,
and listened, and wondered.
I thought fish must be like this sometimes.
We live in only a kind of lighter water, after all.
We swim in it, walking,
we hear the currents, wind.
We cannot see what we live in.
Fish must float sometimes near coral or kelp
and listen to their wind blowing,
feel the current on their fishy faces,
and marvel, and think, what a beautiful sound.
Wind and waves sound alike with your eyes closed.
Then too, another race living in something lighter than air might look at us and say,
do you think they know they live in air?
They probably can’t see it, not like we do,
the other would answer. It’s just their world to them.
So what happens when they’re taken out, and lie gasping?
Are they aware their world is gone? I think they’re thinking of not dying,
says the other.
Let’s just leave them be.
-a.e
A.M. EDMONSON 