Four O'Clock

Four O’clock on a Thursday afternoon
Feels different,
Than a Saturday,
Or a Sunday -
Not usually at home,
I return,
As I laze on a workday afternoon,
Drifting back into yesterday,
Into younger days,
When all afternoons
Stretched –
Full and long,
Different days,
Different light,
And I played with my thoughts,
Mostly dreams and expectations,
The present, then, only a time to be filled
With the latest plans for the future,
A future evolving from yesterdays wonder,
A time to wrap yourself into –
Like a blanket,
A cozy place to safely explore
The outer reaches of tomorrow,
As the day sinks in,
Penetrating the body and soul,
It existed…pure….
As the blank piece of paper you write on,
Atmosphere dictates mood,
Mood, at times, colors the atmosphere,
Four o’clock is a time of anticipation –
Still clinging to mid-afternoon leisure,
Yet pulling towards the activity of evening –
The mid-life of the day
Which finds most in the flux of transition,
Only the young can be still,
Pensive,
Can absorb and be nurtured by four o’clock,
The young and the idle –
It’s almost worth the price !
Idle at four o’clock is to remain ever young ?
Or is it to miss the chance to rediscover it again
To comfort age ?

Today,
The bedroom window frames the top of the pear tree,
With a hazy sky above –
Late summer,
Fruit weighs down branches
Like ornaments on a Christmas tree,
A breeze gently sways the tall, leafy top stalks,
Which tickle the clouds like feathers,
As the trained eye meets the eager heart
All returns,
Like the rush of a wave
All time melts into a feeling,
Of being taken in,
Taken over by something larger –
Four o’clock has a life of it’s own.