Little Joel's voice and bouncing morning jolts
reach through neighbour Kesete's
and my
common wall,
as the autumn school recess -
now labeled “reading holiday”
to inspire the kids
to lay down their smartphones
and pick up a book
- is approaching its end

The usual weekday silence
through this tenement building
has been replaced by lively kids,
bouncing and clamouring;
quite nice for a change!

I spend the early hours
at the tail end of this week
with Evan Harris Walker's
very original take on existence
called The Physics of Consciousness;
The Quantum Mind
and The Meaning of Life,
but find that I need to skip back
through the text ever so often,
where I'd normally just breeze
down the pages;
the contents of the thoughts
aimlessly embellishing my perception

This fuzzy state of affairs
- my presently strained and weakened focus -
is the afterglow of last night's migraine incident

I put the book down for a while,
letting little neighbour Joel's liveliness
paint som bright colours
across the gray, misty migraine aftermath,
while I lie back,
my hands aging before me in plain view,
as I picture all the neighbours,
near and far, through this long building,
as if the walls were made of glass;
all the tenants clearly visible
in their various stages of life
- and I experience an almost Avalokiteshvaran
compassion
for these people, cast into their lives,
coping the best they can,
apartment after apartment,
all the way to the far end of this long, lean row
of cumulative spaces,
outstretched
through accelerating expanse and rising expense
of physical reality,
full of dreams