Outside my window it's never the same-
some mornings jasmine slaps the house, some mornings sorrow.
There is a word I overheard today, meaning lost
not on a career path or across a floating bridge:

Boketto-to stare out windows without purpose.
Don't laugh; it's been too long since we leaned

into the morning: bird friendly coffee and blueberry toast. Awhile
since I declared myself a prophet of lost cats-blind lover

of animal fur and feral appetites. Someone should tag
a word for the calm of a long marriage. Knowledge

the heat will hold, and our lights remain on- a second
sight that drives the particulars of a life: sea glass and salt,

cherry blossoms and persistent weeds. What assembles in the middle
distance beyond the mail truck; have I overlooked oceans,

ignored crows? I try to exist in the somehow, the might still be-
gaze upward to constellations of in-between.

About this poem
"The Japanese word 'boketto' describes something so familiar to me, it's as if a piece of myself has been returned. I've altered the definition by including that the 'gazing without purpose' needs to happen by a window."
-Susan Rich

About Susan Rich
Susan Rich is the author of "Cloud Pharmacy" (White Pine Press, 2014). She teaches at Highline College and lives in Seattle.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2016 Susan Rich. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate