The Neighbors
© 2007 by Michael Domino
Port Jefferson , NY
October 22. 2007
There are two windows in the kitchen, plus
one in my bedroom and one in the guest room.
There is a bay window and a sliding glass door in the living room, and
one smaller window in the dining room.
The shrubs have mostly grown tall, so they
obscure direct views in and out of my home, and that’s OK.
I like it this way; I’ve been slow to meet the neighbors and that’s OK, too.
What’s the big rush? I mean, What’s the big rush? What’s the big rush?
The train tracks are nearby and at first I thought
who the hell wants to live so close to the train tracks anyway?
but now I sort of like the train going by on a regular schedule.
It makes the foundation rumble, to let me know that the ground is still there:
sturdy and rugged and predictable.
When the train goes by, it resembles a mini-earthquake, you know,
reminding you that even the earth vibrates
when something as big and massive as train goes by, making me think,
“That’s one big Mother Earth underneath me.” No kidding.
Recently, I decided to walk from room to room and look out all of the windows, and
this is when I met my closest neighbors.
In bushes outside of my every window lives an entire miniature family.
Its members are three inches tall and busy as heck in the mid-day –
my little neighbors singing and behaving busily for a sunny Saturday afternoon.
They are a little sparrow family chirping and arranging nests and eating and feeding,
just having one big weekend, a bunch of little sparrows.
Outside of every window, the scene was the same.
I thought that the sparrows were following me around the house, but they weren’t.
Actually, my little neighbors seemed to want privacy, so
I closed the blinds and gave it to them, and said,
What’s the big rush, what’s the big rush?