Little Joel's voice and bouncing morning jolts

reach through neighbour Kesete's

and my

common wall,

as the autumn school recess -

now labeled “reading holiday”

to inspire the kids

to lay down their smartphones

and pick up a book

- is approaching its end

The usual weekday silence

through this tenement building

has been replaced by lively kids,

bouncing and clamouring;

quite nice for a change!

I spend the early hours

at the tail end of this week

with Evan Harris Walker's

very original take on existence

called The Physics of Consciousness;

The Quantum Mind

and The Meaning of Life,

but find that I need to skip back

through the text ever so often,

where I'd normally just breeze

down the pages;

the contents of the thoughts

aimlessly embellishing my perception

This fuzzy state of affairs

- my presently strained and weakened focus -

is the afterglow of last night's migraine incident

I put the book down for a while,

letting little neighbour Joel's liveliness

paint som bright colours

across the gray, misty migraine aftermath,

while I lie back,

my hands aging before me in plain view,

as I picture all the neighbours,

near and far, through this long building,

as if the walls were made of glass;

all the tenants clearly visible

in their various stages of life

- and I experience an almost Avalokiteshvaran

compassion

for these people, cast into their lives,

coping the best they can,

apartment after apartment,

all the way to the far end of this long, lean row

of cumulative spaces,

outstretched

through accelerating expanse and rising expense

of physical reality,

full of dreams