Skylight

What over the gable-end and high up under tangled cloud
           that raven might be saying to its tumble-soaring mate
or what the blackbird might intend when chattering among
           scattered breadcrumbs or what the bellowing of one cow
then another in the near field might mean remains beyond
           my ken—being all noise for which no words will manage
though all is language settling and unsettling the world
           beyond me . . . and yet there’s the dunnock in all its
dun colours at work among the small stones and patchy grass
           of the driveway and here’s the robin’s aggressive tilt
at breadcrumbs and there goes the sudden shriek
           of the blackbird . . . all alive inside the inhuman
breath-pattern of the wind trawling every last leaf
           and blade of grass and flinging rain like velvet pebbles
onto the skylight: nothing but parables in every bristling inch
           of the out-of-sight unspoken never-to-be-known pure
sense-startling untranslatable there of the world as we find it.


World Word, by Eamon Grennan


Woke up in the morning and stood up on the bed to take this photo out the skylight. Then discovered a student in my class had tested positive for Covid over the weekend. Seeing as I was already home for the day not feeling so hot, it seemed prudent to get one of those rapid take-home tests. Fortunately it came back negative. Of course, that means back to work in the morning. We have a pool testing program in place, so I will be tested again tomorrow. After all this time, the number of cases around me has really started not only to increase, but to get closer and closer. 

During the morning's stormy weather, some shingles actually blew off the front of the house and clattered onto the steps, spooking the cat. After a period of relative calm during the afternoon, the wind has really started to pick up again. The noise of the trees is rising and falling like waves, and the rain striking the side of the house comes in gusts. The doors and windows are shaking and rattling, various groans are coming from different parts of the house, and the flap on the oven vent is letting out little intermittent metallic squeaks from the changing air pressure created by the wind. The bell on the porch is ringing away, the clear tone still faintly audible before it is struck again. 

Just like a lullaby.