Roma, still

My hotel room faces inward, looking down on the small courtyard and across to buildings that are not the hotel. From my window I can just see the corner of a room in a house or apartment across the courtyard. It seems to be a library or study since the wall is covered in messy overstuffed bookshelves. In front of the books there is a desk. When evening comes someone in the house turns on the green bankers lamp on the desk and sits working. From my angle I cannot see the person in the desk. I see only a hand that holds a cigarette and the smoke that curls in front of the shadows on the wall. The hand pauses to turn the page in a book and then returns to hold the glowing stick. Who is this who sits late at night as the smoke curls into the air?

February, but we have faith that someday the sun will return.

I looked out my window this afternoon to see the large winter tree blooming in song birds. Little bitty grey-brown personages flitting from branch to branch, hanging upside down and filling the tree with life normally reserved for another season. The tree reaches up high above the neighbors two story house and every part of it is full of these small chirpers. I don't know why they have decided to congregate in this particular tree, but here they are.