On a Very Grey Day

Susan Kohn Green    

A petal of a red rose just fluttered by my kitchen window

On the seventeenth floor.

I have seen many things sail by;

From egrets and pigeons,

Billowing plastic bags-  to balloons

Which some child probably lost far below

And is crying for now, as they twist and turn,

Adrift between the buildings

And on into the sky

Oblivious to the pain of her loss. 

After all, it is a balloon.

I have seen airplanes,

A blimp, looking for all it’s worth 

Like a goldfish swimming sedately through the sky,

And helicopters - 

That, to my eye, look like mosquitoes

And sound like black flies.

Clouds, sunsets, moons - 

But never before a single petal of a red rose.