A Minor Act of Weather

Now and then, quietly without notice, Time adjusts its spectacles— Peers through a fogged pane of recall Where particulars, once urgent, dissolve. If now and then you find rain in your heart, be assured it is scheduled— a punctual drizzle of consequence, not passion, but the persistence of memory in its bureaucratic overcoat. It’s all because of you, the file states plainly: signed in duplicate, sealed in dust. No redress required— only the courteous nod to causality. The aged—those quaint accumulations— become, in the end, detours. Not disliked, precisely, but excessive to the route: a bench beneath ivy, seldom occupied. So live out your days with decorum. Attend the rituals of silence. Polish your small routines. Let time, that sly curator, catalogue your exit in amber.