Brooding Winter Day Poem by Suzanne Hayasaki

As I walk familiar paths
At no particular pace
Towards no particular goal
I let my eyes and my mind wander.

It is a dull day
With gray clouds
Heavier on the bottom
Blotting out sun and color.

And yet this appeals to me.
It mutes the scene
Leaving the lines of the trees
To speak to me in their geometry.

If only I had the patience of a painter.
If only I could stand, brush in hand,
Day after day watching the sky change.
Maybe then I could decipher what their branches say.

Or maybe they play a melody
Scored out in their thinnest twigs.
Maybe as the birds perch they change the tune
Augmenting or detracting
Depending on the branch they land on.

In another life
With different gifts
I may have had the leisure
And the genius
To work this out.

But my reveries are stolen
In fractions of hours
Found in gaps between
Responsibilities I cannot shirk.

So my ideas remain vague,
Unstated, untested,
Fading one into the next
Yet leaving me changed.

It is not the road,
More or less traveled,
That makes the difference,
It is where my mind wanders as I walk.