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Jerry Gill

Snowflakes

As I do every weekday afternoon, I sit in my car at the end of a street on the river. The water is rippled and dark and dotted with winter seagulls. Two coots dive...surface...dive...surface...in front of me. A formation of geese honks low overhead and disappears over the village. I read Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," doze, write a haiku or two, read, doze, watch the seagulls and coots, doze, read... Time passes. If one can't realize one's insignificance, one's essential nothingness, here, one can't realize it anywhere.