windows are made for
breathing even when they’re closed
they get more respect
than doors that divide when shut
or disquiet when open
and windows are made
for catching the world beyond
they don’t wait for doors
to let in or to let out
they are there and here at once
© SSJ 2017
Author’s note:
The pictures above are of a witty pigeon who chooses to nest on the ledge outside one of the windows of our Jeddah residence. It knows that the wind is stronger this time of the year and the laurel tree nearby will be too shaky for her eggs. This is probably the female of a love pair, and she has just laid the first egg of this season’s brood. In the next days, she will lay a second and maybe a third egg, but no more than that. Then she and her male partner will take turns incubating the eggs, the female usually sitting in the nest at night, and the male during most of the day, for a little less than 3 weeks before the hatchlings break from their shells. The love pair will usually stick to one another, raising several broods all year round, or until death do them part.
Below is a poetry video that I have previously posted in this blog, with the same theme about windows breathing light to wings of life:
light breathes on, a poetry video
— SSJ, 29 September 2017
Lovely window!
Thank you, Cynthia!
You’re welcome 😊
Love this piece, and the idea behind it, and the artwork. ⭐️ It’s as you say “there and here at once,” even when it’s a view of the apartment block opposite. When I’ve worked in windowless rooms, it really felt quite different–no breaks, no moments spent staring out the window and daydreaming, thinking of nothing. 🙂
Thank you for this thoughtful comment, Steve. Yes, windows are made for daydreaming too. Kind of balances the window’s potential for superficial curiosity.
It has been suggested that our ideas are like birds that flutter in the aviary of our brains, and we need a “purpose-free calm” to settle them down so that we can catch and make sense of them, and window daydreaming affords us that “creative potential of reverie”, according to this entertaining video clip, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lz-qrVUecE 🙂
Doors, will not do, they signify a rigidity of beginnings and ends, but certainly you wouldn’t want to be caught up working in a doorless room? 😀 Anyway, ever wonder why Bill Gates chose to name that OS as Microsoft Windows, instead of Microsoft Doors? 😀
Thank you so much for the link, very much enjoyed, and perhaps I am not as much of a slacker as I imagined. 😀 Yes, a great name, and although he’s a great philanthropist, I have to say that the name might be the best part of Windows. 😉
You’re welcome, Steve. I’ve heard that great, smart, good-natured philanthropist 😉 😉 also loves reading books, though mostly the non-fiction types Very recently, though, he gave a thumbs up to a book (The Heart, by Maylis de Kerangal) that he tearfully described as poetry disguised as a novel. Hmmmnnn, maybe he’ll get to be reading more poetry now? 🙂
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Lovely series of photos!
Thank you, Sue!
Well done 🙂
Thank you for the appreciation, da-AL 🙂
Inspiring poem.
Thank you, Allan.
Wow!😊
Thanks for the Wow!, Joy! 😀
You are welcome sir😊