The sounds of the morning,

as perceived up in the bedroom:

The thunder of the tumble dryer

down in the hall,

holding up in short pauses;

the flute of Hariprasad Chaurasia

in Raga Darbari Kanada, Alap & Jor,

winding

like a cobra between the speakers

down in the living room;

the bird picking, clawing & scratching

up on the tin roof

- and the thin pages

of Douglas Hofstadter's Le Ton beau de Marot

being flipped by my hands in front of my face;

the dryer providing the soaring, rumbling base

for this musique concrète score;

the drone

that everything else has to relate to,

like the cosmic background noise

when you're scanning existence for alien intelligence,

but which – when it pauses – opens peepholes

onto the other sounds; windows on puppet show scenes

of this winter morning, still dark as the Earth tilts away

from the blinding eye in the sky