I Sat To Listen Poem by Mark Heathcote

I sat to listen and witness-
the springtime morning air
by simply taking time to pause-
and rest unaccompanied.
Back of a railway track beneath
falling pear and apple blossoms.
It was a moment to daydream.
Without a single cloud of disapproval.
I entered some inner silence, like
the taper of an unlit candle.
With only hoverflies and the short-lived
intervals of a passing train as a distraction.
I had no deadlines or other places to be.
The world stretched before me like a sock-
begrudgingly pulled from a clammy big toe.
When multiple baby rabbits and kittens appeared
from the brambles to them, I was just
an inanimate object, like the stump of an old oak tree.
The hoverflies and bees were all in harmonic choir.
As they ran around their burrow in sheer ecstatic joy.
Leaping into play with unadulterated love on full display.
I sat in awe of such short-lived, wondrous pleasures-
theirs, mine, and yours alike.
The next unwelcome train thundered on through
a daydream, a bubble I wish just grew and grew,
without obstacles or boundaries to one day rue.
It was then that the candle wick was lit again-
for nightfall, and my ankle socks were gathered in hand-
and thrust into place, and then I marched to the beat-
of a distant, derailed train unloved,
back on track, ultimately going nowhere fast.