Nancy Scott McBride’s most recent poem to appear here was “Times Like These” (March 2020).

The World Through a Window
For Cliff Miller
By Nancy Scott McBride

From this ordinary rectangle overlooking a
field with mountains in the distance,
I have witnessed many wondrous things.
I’ve observed a family of deer grazing
peacefully at dawn, and again at twilight.
I’ve seen the fallow field covered with spider
webs that sparkled with dew as the sun rose.
I have awakened to find it blanketed with snow,
and the trees glittering with icicles, like in a fairy tale.
I have watched July fireworks blossom in the night,
and marveled at the tiny pyrotechnics of fireflies.
I’ve seen calves being born, and have laughed
to see them race each other from fence to fence,
kicking up their heels with joy. I have trembled at
snake lightening and ball lightening and every kind
of lightening you can imagine. I’ve stared in wonder
at twin rainbows arcing the field after a storm.
I’ve glimpsed meteorites and comets and falling stars.
I once saw a man land in the field with a parachute.
I’ve experienced the eerie, dream-like beauty of a solar
eclipse, and the odd, un-settling vision of a lunar one.
I have seen these things and more, and if it was all
I had of life, I believe it might be enough.