Meditatio

A white candle burns by the empty fireplace. A desert lamp leans like a cold ceramic tower to the right of the broken music box on the floor. The candlelight reflected on the white gloss paint next to the fireplace flickers like a burning lighthouse. I hear only silence within the hollow of the unplayed acoustic guitar that comes all the way from China. I sneeze, and the dust particles on the blinds stick their hands up and say it was them. A message flashes up. The so-called anti-spyware device on the computer says it has zapped 19 spyware items. Only because the items are peppered with words such as trade and click and ad and serving do I appreciate their demise. My calf muscles stiffen. The book from my dying sister is on the table. I have not written to her yet. A second lamp meanwhile looks up at me from the wooden floorboards to my left. My son's toy police badge sits on the shelf below the Eliot, Sassoon, Plath, Auden and Hughes books. I think briefly and warmly about the land across the ocean. I think about the month drawing to an end, and I think about money. I think about the art. I hear the artist's voice as she reads a story to the children in another room, and even the cars outside seem to be listening. I hear the dishwasher and smell what I find out are the phosphates, nonionic surfactants, polycarboxylates, enzymes, perfume, geraniol, hexyl cinnamal and oxygen-based bleaching agent of the dishwasher tablets. (I nearly place the box of tablets back in the fridge after checking the ingredients.) The TV is turned off. I am wondering why I am having trouble finding certain websites. As I await news on a possible job, travel, position, hope, in my mind I am tapping my fingers. At least I am not idle. At least I am looking, however independently, at the big picture with fresh eyes every day. At least if I am running in circles they are at the crack of dawn. I feel like some tea, a perfect cup of full luxurious tea. The candle by the fire meanwhile flickers like a ghost, and I think about my dead parents. Then I think about music. No, I don't think about music, I feel about music, I imagine music, I almost hear music. The artist has had a good day. She has met with the young woman with the gallery and the woman is coming to see the work in the flesh. The candlelight, if I am not mistaken, applauds.