Post-Smoke Sunday Morning
Instead, the rain patters my ears, the birds talk
Hazy is gone, rainsoaked away
Memory lingers on the sills and the potted plants under the porch awning
I am sitting next to one, brushing a stalk clean
Thinking I can actually feel particulate matter between my thumb and pointer
I saw it in the air yesterday, convinced it was real, not a ghost, not a deep state psyop
Today it is gone, though this is a hyperlocal reality, more on the way
Instead, the rain patters my ears, the birds talk
The gutters echo, what we call quiet is a lulling din
Is this the natural state, or the disruption?
Cars pass, too fast for this my new residential street, and the tires make static of the still-wet beneath
Another plane overhead, and I know, closer to the airport, regret of wishing then missing the commission meeting
This noise is pollution, but so too is the pollution
Jet smoke, fire smoke, gun smoke trailing the reports echo from a shooting range nearby
Up the hill? Safety and peaceful order, or latent threat?
A tinted jeep roars by, a single blue line in its rear window