It's Still Life

Stream of Consciousness (Motion)

There’s a pigeon drinking from the rain gutter, dipping and lifting, dipping again, each swallow calling on the small machinery of its neck, while beneath it a bead of leaf-rusty water finds the gutter’s seamed joint and follows its old route downward; beyond the rain-poxed window a branch moves through still air, and a passing car shoulders yesterday’s leaves into a brief resurrection, lifting them in a dry brown whirl before letting them fall again. The pigeon startles, wings opening hard, gutter-water scattering silver into the morning light, and for three fierce beats it hangs at the end of a twig where gravity seems to have lost its argument, then crosses the garden and disappears beyond the roof. The branch goes on swaying after it has gone. The leaves settle. Sunlight moves slowly through the trees, touching one thing and then another, and I realise how little of the world ever consents to stillness. Even here, in this small corner, everything is leaving, arriving, falling, lifting, passing through.

Written for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness. Some images created with Midjourney; all writing is authentically my own original work.©Misky 2006-2026.