"Alone"

She sits beside her fireplace, quietly rocking.

Back and forth, back and forth.

Silently contemplating:

Lost in the past, ignoring the present, not yet ready to accept the future?

All is still, all is calm;

Nothing moves, not the slightest sound of life around her.

Her only companion, the potted fern,

Dutifully fulfilling its place in life,

Growing with water, seeking the sun, expanding its roots.

There it sits alone on the window sill;

While it’s master is seated in her own isolation.

What is she thinking, in time to the back and forth, back and forth?

Perhaps musing on memories past, opportunities taken or lost,

Regrets or shortcomings, elations or sweet accomplishments?

Maybe brought back to an era few still alive to recall,

Living life vicariously through lapsed memory.

Alternatively, she is mentally wandering among more of the mundane:

Chores, grocery list, errands, or bills.

No one watching to ask what could possibly occupy her thoughts,

No one there to care.

The clock ticks in time with her rocking,

Ever back and forth, back and forth.

Fire dimming just slightly,

Casting the only lighted shadows across the floor.

Moon having risen, stars slightly visible through scattered clouds,

Little light encompasses our mute persons.

Owls and bats fly freely outside,

Birds of prey in the endless cycle of predatory habits.

Blankly programmed slates simply driven by primal urges;

Next meal, next need, next act of survival.

Yet this seated creature much more complex,

Unable to simply live to exist.

More is beyond the surface, a prize yet a burden;

Not so simply this life to be lead.

Possible troubled angst on one side,

Potential happiness fulfilled on the other;

A pendulum to be swung one way or another.

Back and forth, back and forth.

At times resting on this journey,

Motion is halted and balance is found.

Yet constant changes quake this swing back to motion;

Choices, decisions, actions.

Not all are in our power-left to fate,

Others solely conscious, and put in motion by one’s own hand,

Still some simply repercussions combinations of two.

What twists of fate,

Or is it by personal regard does this heavy thinker rock

Back and forth, back and forth?

Could loneliness reside within that beating heart,

Aching for something lost or perhaps never fulfilled?

Conversely is it perfect contentment found in her present company:

A fern of no words.

What brews below this surface one wonders;

Troubled unease, aching pines,

Pleasant acceptance, anticipated hopes?

As each being is so layered,

Only obliged to share as much as one pleases,

One soul truly knows itself.

How well one may see another is only through the window they open

Decidedly as far to their liking.

What light they cast outwardly dimmed and brightened

Exclusively by their own kindling.

She sits beside her fireplace, quietly rocking

Back and forth, back and forth.

An enigma, a mystery to all the outside.

Sweetly contained in the safety of her abode but also her mind;

What weighs on this delicate soul?