A prose poem, partly inspired by Henry James’ Beast in the Jungle….
Waiting Six am. The man stands at the edge of the courtyard with his dog. Nothing moves but the animal, circling. He watches. This Time belongs to him No one can take it away from him Till the city wakes. The windows across the way are mostly dark. But one is lit. Inside, a figure. Or the shadow of one. He cannot tell which. To wait is a kind of losing —one might say. Nothing happens Although you keep wanting it to— So you keep waiting For nothing to happen. The trees surround him. Their branches are bent as if to hold something inside. A lattice of black lines against the gray sky That might otherwise crash on him. It is as if the trees are folding their arms around this hour, Around this man who is allowed, for now, to be still. A room. So as to imagine that this waiting is purely intentional But also to protect it— This loose, flagging piece of Time. Everyone is in control— The dog will finish when it finishes. The bus will come when it comes. The figure at the window—if it is watching him— will look away or will not. The trees are waiting too. Their branches hold This man and his world. He looks at the figure again. Does it see him? In Harlem at six am, there is almost no one. Just the watchers and the watched. Just the waiting and the waiting. The man is waiting for the dog. The dog is waiting for something in the earth. The figure in the window is waiting for eight o'clock, When he has to go to work. Are the trees waiting for permission to green? Or have they simply accepted that waiting is not the pause before life— it is life itself? Waiting was meant to be temporary. A moment before the real thing arrives. It will come, One day. The man knows it Every morning at six, When he stands in that courtyard with his dog, Wrapped by the trees. He knows something is missing Although he is not sure what— And he stays anyway. Not because he believes anymore, but because the waiting, which Was supposed to only last a while, Has become everything. In the end, he forgets what he were originally waiting for. It wasn’t the train. It was something else. What was it? For his Time. He always believes, not hopes, that eventually the day will arrive— When he becomes who he has always wanted to be. But in the end, All the while, waiting. The leash is slack in his hand. The window holds its light. Somewhere a radiator hisses. Somewhere someone else cannot sleep. He thinks: everyone wants something. Not for the same thing. But in the same way. With the same small hope that what we wait for might someday justify all this standing still. The figure does not move. Neither does he. The dog finishes. Looks up. But the man does not walk away yet. He looks up at the window and understands-- This moment is held-- By the trees. By the early hour. By the figure By everything that says: you can stay here a little longer. His only right To keep wanting. Nothing will happen. He doesn’t know that Although He will go home and wash the dishes And then clean his study. Perhaps the light in the window is simply a light. And the man at the window is simply alone, And he is watching this courtyard From his vantage point Watching this man Watching him And waiting For the bus to arrive at eight forty seven am. The dog moves through the branches' shadows. The man stands at the center of them. The figure watches from across the courtyard. Everything is held in the curve of these branches. Everything is waiting in the shapes they have made. The man does not know yet He is the beast he has been waiting for. He is the man the beast has made.