On the Roof

I like to perch on the roof

Like a cherry on a Sunday,

Happy to be left alone.

I wait as a witness

To make the hills feel seen

In their last golden hurrah before a yearly death;

I sit still and attend their funeral

And bid the sandpaper landscape adieu

Before they turn to dust and then white,

Then green.

I watch like a princess in a tower,

There by choice,

Bewitched by nothing more than the view

And I don’t care to share,

A prince would be a distraction.

I kick my feet as the sun dies,

Staining the sky with its sorrow

And last jolt of joy

Til tomorrow.

I stay as a canvas,

And the world paints itself in my mind

To hang in my memories.

I sit alone

And watched time go by to the rhythm of my heartbeat,

Each moment savored separately

As the hills and I age together

As they spread to the horizon

And I perch on the roof.