Prelude Etude

@ T. S. Eliot

The frost on the windows accumulates
No feet yet sound in the passageways.
Six o'clock.
The chewed-out pens from thoughts.
And now out a notebook fall
The paper scraps
Printout arrayed across the floor
And cars arrive in vacant lots;
The sound of feet
On empty blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
The shop opens its doors to coffee smells.
And then the extinguishing of the lamps.

(October, 2009)

Note: This should have been posted months ago. Discovered this dog-eared page in my Drafts folder. Graduate student days are now distant, but night outs for the final push to get the paper out of the door aren't.