view from the artist's room

                                                                                                art by Jakob Alt


  Free from the sounds of the street.High above the lower levels,the geranium pots lined on the ledges and the cats creeping.It is early morning and a storm gathers in the east.The light on the grey walls is muted.The whitewashed walls across the way look dull in morning cloudiness.

 The air is fresh,clean from yesterday's rain.The trees stir giving a rustling sound to the dawn.The green shade is curled upward to allow the most light. The curve of the window moulding,the clean shiny window,the small wooden table ,frame the mountains in the distance.

 On the table,under the blank paper is a thin volume of poems.The cover is rich yellow with a few blue bachelor buttons seemingly pressed into the golden background.The poems are spare in words;simple like the room.

Below the window,wet clothes snap in the breeze on a thin white line strung between two windows.They hang waiting for breezes or even the sun.Mostly white,they give some brightness to these early hours.The sound of them is not unpleasant to the ear of the artist.

The everlasting peace of the mountains,the trees and the light speak their own words to the heart of the one who hears the wash and the leaves .Who sits in the morning air and waits.

It will take awhile for the artist's conscious thinking to settle.Eventually the sluice opens by itself and words, not summoned ,come from another place and make their way into the writer's thoughts.And morning blesses the cats,the poet,and the woman who washes.