I look out my window.
Grey clouds gather on the horizon
Like an assemblage of Napoleon’s great armies
Poised and ready to do battle against
A pale and weary winter’s sun.
The order is given and the charge commences.
I sit sipping my first cup of coffee.
The quietness of the house is short-lived.
Wind and thunder now rule the morning skies!
The steady beat of raindrops crescendo into a
Waterfall of sound.
There is no umbrella for the mind.
Freshly painted walls
Are quickly spoiled,
Wet and blurred by the incessant
Seepage of water,
The persistent dripping of faint memories,
Dark mental images,
Of loss and sorrow,
Loneliness and disillusionment.
Everything runs together,
Now,
In this moment,
In this state of mind,
Forming unmatched puzzle pieces
Scattered in piles like great shards
Of blank black slate board
Strewn across the floor
Of an old abandoned schoolhouse.

Now seated at my desk
I stare at a blank
Bleached sheet of white typing paper.
I imagine the chalk,
I grasp the pen.
I sit silently searching.
Where to begin?
Where to end?
I furiously scribble words and numbers.
Wildly they strike the page,
Ricocheting like bullets
Off of the smooth surface
Of a concrete basement wall.
The words form thoughts
But they are incomplete.
The numbers denote dates and times
But I am not satisfied by these finite representations.
They disappear into a black hole
I am shooting blanks.
The paper is wadded and discarded,
Wadded and discarded.
Then, the pen is once again laid to rest.
I cannot help thinking
How closely interwoven the strands of reality
Truly are with the thin threads of the unreal.

Shaking my head
I exit that rational state.
I make my excuses,
Forgiving myself for my limitations
As I would forgive those
Who would seek to limit my imagination.
I pass through a portal.
Consciously I cross a line.
Cautiously I give in to my inner child.
Pictures begin to evolve.
Colors are extracted from
Hidden depths,
Brining forth freckled faces,
Rolling-hill pastures and fields of alfalfa,
Yellow-green tootsie roll bales of new mowed hay,
Two-story lofted barns,
Children, all legs and arms
Running and playing,
Running and playing.
Cornstalks six foot tall,
Standing like a stadium crowd
Waving in unison
To that favorite sun,
Now rising on their spirits to its zenith.

And from these images
Sounds evolve like fish growing feet,
Crawling from primeval ooze.
I hear
Roosters crowing,
Dogs barking,
The buzzing of summer insects,
A strayed calf bellowing out
To a mother who is not too far away,
Children laughing,
Children laughing,
The dinner bell in the distance
Ringing.

It is now comfortable in my imaginary world.
My artificial sunshine
Has, once more,
Saved me from the chilling clutches
Of a rainy day reality.