Temporary Matter

I was instructed not to go out into society because of a temporary matter where corpses were multiplying every day. I thought it was a chance to do something I hadn’t done, and so I signed up for an introductory poetry course on a Massive Open Online Course because I am a beginner at poetry and am a good self­-learner. The course reached out to me: Start learning today by watching your first video: watch a video on Emily Dickinson’s “I dwell in Possibility.” I was not sure whether my residence was possibility. My chamber, upstairs, has two windows—one of them offers a view of the magnolia tree in the garden below; its thousands of purple and white shapes loom up toward me, with a perfect curve for the blue sky. I counted the flowers in the tree. Watching the light accumulating in the tree was the only thing I could do at the time. I was subtracted from the world. I saw light as not a form but life; light not a concept but a rhythm. Light not understanding but inspiration after all.