It’s Real

It’s there and it’s real, like snow. Trucks carrying newsprint clog the freeways with its rumour. I was walking along beside it. Something about its timing, its velocity, struck me. I thought, for the first time, that it might be real. It is. It’s there, inside the word. It’s a breathless word. It’s a mountain. Its shadows are cool in summer. Its slopes are the reclined thighs of a human being. It walks beside me in the evening. We have no use for silence any longer. Bottles of it have been brewed from bees. It’s there, just like you and me. It’s alive and it’s real. It’s the arcane magic of a long string of digits, or a phone number. It’s local. It has a destination. Its timezone is fluid. It breathes. It is the silhouette of a flower. Children know of it. Animals knew of it, once. Its cogs and wheels whirr. I know of it. I could see it in the moon. Winter knows its warmth. Stars do not. Sailors sing to it. Birds do not have wings. I do not even dare to breathe. It lingers, in the frost. It’s there and it’s real, like that rain.