Nicholas Browning

The Meaning in Nothing

Someone softly speaks, across the hall - I can hear

The sweetness in their tone, as it strokes the chandelier.

There seems to be some care, in the quiet rendezvous,

While I sit and listen, to the words, passing through.

 

A parting cloud has graced the ground, and now

I see the light of day again, through the window, and around.

It spreads throughout the building, encouraging optimism,

Shade has been forgotten, yet invented in its revision.

 

Birds outside have come to bathe, in their tiny water dish,

Fluttering like new leaves in spring, with no single thing amiss.

Now clean, they fly away, to a place no mind can stray,

Leaving feathers as remembrance while the joy they spread fades.

 

In knowing lies complication, in expecting, and in truth,

Consideration given to others is not always returned.

Old frustrations and fresh worries, in spite of the lessons learned,

Are lost upon an audience, both degenerate, and uncouth.

 

The sorrow a heart is given, seeps, and begins to split,

So once a heart knows, even mended, it never forgets.

Ambiguity may be the cure, dissonance mayhaps the cause,

But what can be said for certain, in the meaningless quandary,

Of love and its beauty, of affection and its appeal -

Is that love is appreciation, as it is a throbbing scar,

And that affection is the verse completed, but left unfinished;

It is kindness without sincerity: the fictional memoir.