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Alan Harris reading
Washing Windows
by Alan Harris
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This morning we two are washing our upstairs windows, a yearly drudge-- you indoors, and I out on a ladder. Each other's face appears begrimed through window after window as we wiggle them free from their filthy aluminum tracks. We do lose our patience, let's admit, if the other of us turns imperfect somehow or startles the first with a near-fall or a near-drop. Danger and caution are dancing. Suburban cleanliness fails to fool me. I feel underneath this dayness an expansive nightness where one's essence may freely float between shadows of shadows or bask in uncanny glimmers of glory, having seen no shape, thought no thought. Day distracts us. When we think to be simply washing windows, an inner mysteriousness guides our hands from far behind our eyes. Day has dangers, but night is as safe as Allness. Wipe your glass clean, yes, but be not deceived by what you see through it. I could settle for a diet of only days-- our windows, their cleaning, shaky ladders, plus countless other depthless decoys that dwellers of the eye have come to accept. But I won't. I must be soft into knowingless night, where quiet bumpings and strange bewilderments flow, merge, disappear. My appetite is for the fruit of freedom growing upon hidden trees of maybe. Wipe your window, yes, in bright daylight-- but I insist on washing my side with night. |
From the book Heartclips (1996)
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