On Waiting

Years ago, I received a call from a local high school about a young poet who hoped to spend some time working with me.  He had been an inconsistent student, but teachers had seen, in his writing, in his habits of reading and of mind, great promise.  I invited him into my world.

He was, as it turns out, extraordinary, and in his first assignment for me (for he was a photographer as well as a poet, and we had much in common and then again, hardly anything at all in common), he photographed this place.  He wrote it down.

Yesterday, while waiting for notes on a novel, I traveled to his (I will always think of it as his) abandoned greenhouse, stole past the fence and the no trespassing signs, and stood—wondering what became of him, wondering what would become of the novel.  A question gets asked, and a door opens.  Glass breaks.  Sun fights its way in.