It is the potential energy of stationary objects that endows them with vivacious beauty.

 

Still Frame

For Andi Desaro

 

I hear self-studied leaves

boast about being the subject of conversation,

while their trees,

who’ve survived generations of such propaganda,

listen to each new budding breed

with firmly planted roots.

 

I feel safest on aluminum ladders

or oak reinforced with steel,

and feel those of rope and wire

should be condemned

by the Roman Catholic church

for their gratuitous wiggling.

 

But everything moves at some pace,

even when not of its own.

 

Barnacles collect gracefully,

holding silent cheers under their breath

until restless boats and whales sleep in calmer waters,

unaware that even those seas

are cradled in oceans moved with the rotation of galaxies.

 

When you sleep,

groping through a world of intangibility,

your chest betrays your stillness,

even as your eyelids try to conceal

their eyes’ nauseating somnambulism.

 

However, when you fall silent in thought,

chasing, retracing the intangible,

breath inches from your mouth,

a cautious burglar,

your eyes lock onto a distant spec.

 

And even though your mind is reeling,

it’s taken you 30 minutes

to take a first sip of now-cold coffee,

which sits just as still,

patiently cradling your reflection.