257: Walking/across the parking lot...

Walking

across the parking lot

late in a tired day

the still

shopping cart

                    Jumps!

          out    at me

even though it has not moved

The red plastic corners

and the wire cage basket are

           suddenly

           beautiful

as if this were not a shopping cart at all

but something else entirely new, seen for

           the first time

Perhaps, it is the rain both

clinging

           and

                     dripping

from the shining chrome

under

electric lamp light

Maybe. it's the way the cart

sits askew in the shallow depression

in the pavement

                     where the rain has collected

to form a puddle

            and the lamp light

     reflects and distorts

           like a warped mirror

     amid inexplicable

           ripples

Possibly, it is this gray hour

when certain things seem more vivid

than they do in our ordinary world

But I do not know why

this shopping cart is

suddenly beautiful like

it's a marker for the center of

creation

                    I do not know

          enough about art

or aesthetics

to tell you why

it has

      paralyzed

me into

      noticing

it

and mesmerized me in this cold rain

ask some one else and

they will dismiss it

"He was tired"

                    they'll say

          or something like it

but the poets know

that these moments of

          sudden beauty

are the magic of the ordinary

and it is a blessing

to behold

           their nothingness.

©2011 by Jonathan Neske

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