On watching time pass

[inselberg]

Shadows drift across the landscape,
deepening the valleys, separating the sunlight.
Each passing cloud's cast changes the view;
I succumb, drifting far, caught in the shift.
The valley darkens, the wind blows
but up here, perched like a cat on the edge
of its ninth, I can't quite hear what life's
trying to say. My hearing has weakened
over the years. I turn to my left side
aching to hear a whisper so delicate
it seems to be silence endeared.
A gull lifts off, soaring on a gust,
flapping now, flapping then. He disappears
on the edge of color scraping each cloud
with a hint of green, grey, yellow. The shadow
moves and the landscape drifts and the shape
of the world, once again shifts. My mind
at ease, listening deep to the nothing
everyone sees that paints the emptiness
so full for me. The colors and silence,
the hint of that reeks havoc on the occupied
mind. Smiling, drifting, closing the blinders,
I gallop forward and watch as I mold the world.