oh, to be a fly on the wall

a fly gently buzzes by landing on my window pane

it's colored with a green shade of shiny black-blue,
and then it gathers its opaque wings to its side, it has
skipped up on the glass looking out the window.
it shares my stares looking out, watching finches
eating from the feeder I have set for them
between the shelter of bushes and brush tactically
positioned so that the menacing gray hawk
perching above in a pine can only be irritated by
the inaccessibility to its prey
on this cool white winters day

the fly with its front legs primping its face

stares out into that outside space
watching, probably philosophizing, how it can
see this world outside yet confused and curious
looking through this translucent hard surface
that separates him from his freedom

“…who knows for what supreme forces- gods or

demons of Truth in whose shadow we roam-
I may be nothing but a shiny fly that alights in front of them
but for a moment or two…”
(Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet)

this moment casts upon me a shadow of cognitive reflection

of, wherefore am I, in the relevance, in the significance
to the difference between me and this fly and from each
to the world beyond this glass. I sit observing
from here thinking of myself irreverently and disdaining
my conjured self importance. a curious and hard
translucent surface separates me from
Natures sublimely painted white wintry cool