Yesterday I walked through a town.
The town felt sleepy.
Not sleepy, as in there was no one awake,
But sleepy as in everything here seemed to move at a slower pace,
Like the long sidewalks were just giving people the space to think.
There were people outside, but somehow the street felt quiet.
But it wasn't the sad kind of quiet that makes the locals look down and makes the strangers wonder what happened ...
No,
This quiet was the kind that seemed to let people catch their breath and look around.
There wasn't really much to look at, because the town was small.
Or maybe there was lots to look at if you weren't just passing through.
The sun hung in the sky and glinted down on the melting snow.
Some kids were walking home from school. One of them was kicking a piece of gravel.
I watched.
I didn't know this town, but maybe I could write about it.
I liked it because it seemed far away from chaos. (If chaos could be pinned down to one location.)
I liked the slowness. I liked the easy breeze.
I liked the way that I could just walk up a little hill a few blocks away and look over the entire town.
It wasn't beautiful, but when the sun was hitting it that way,
I could have been fooled into thinking it was.
The town felt sleepy.
Not sleepy, as in there was no one awake,
But sleepy as in everything here seemed to move at a slower pace,
Like the long sidewalks were just giving people the space to think.
There were people outside, but somehow the street felt quiet.
But it wasn't the sad kind of quiet that makes the locals look down and makes the strangers wonder what happened ...
No,
This quiet was the kind that seemed to let people catch their breath and look around.
There wasn't really much to look at, because the town was small.
Or maybe there was lots to look at if you weren't just passing through.
The sun hung in the sky and glinted down on the melting snow.
Some kids were walking home from school. One of them was kicking a piece of gravel.
I watched.
I didn't know this town, but maybe I could write about it.
I liked it because it seemed far away from chaos. (If chaos could be pinned down to one location.)
I liked the slowness. I liked the easy breeze.
I liked the way that I could just walk up a little hill a few blocks away and look over the entire town.
It wasn't beautiful, but when the sun was hitting it that way,
I could have been fooled into thinking it was.
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S.Reid
Mar 18, 2021
There are so many remarkable images and observations in this poem, but this one really stands out to me: "... Like the long sidewalks were just giving people the space to think." I'll never look at a long sidewalk the same way again. Thank you for that image, Zazu. It's wonderful!