(Week Four) Improvisation #5 of the The Pastoral

of Philip Larkin's "The Explosion"

Riffing off of the lines, "On the day of the explosion / Shadows pointed towards the pithead: / In the sun the slagheap slept."

From here the trees and sky stay quiet as props in an exhibit, always that shade
of green or that number of gray against a weak backdrop of blue. I watch people
pass along the sidewalks like tiny residential machines, scuffing sadness under
their feet. The day a subtle breeze, a breath of agony. Even the pigeons worry
over the life of a crumb. Death sleeps like the rays of sun, wakes with magnetic force
from a full moon. From my window the trees stare back in anguish, in their branches
I see my face.