Marks, stains...perceptions from the window

My balcony has been enclosed with windows. The lane below sends up too much noise. Over a period of time, trees have grown thick and the foliage spread enough for me to not be able to see others or for them to look up at me.

The other day, the glass of the window had these splotches.




They look like white tears snaking down cheeks.

They look like footprints on water, lengthened by ripples.

They look like paint strokes on a transparent canvas.

They look like unusual flowers growing on the trees, flowers that might act as scarecrows.

They look like sticks rising from the ground; the one on the extreme right like a cane being held by a blind person or one too debilitated to walk alone without support.

They look like punctuation marks – a period that has decided to extend itself, a comma that has gone straight, an exclamation mark that is not quite so exclamatory and a question mark that isn’t so probing a query.

They look like ghosts, a trifle too thin, as though just having left their skeletons.

They look like the marks they are on a window that is. It did not take me long to realise they were just traces of pigeon shit. I don’t know how many pigeons excreted there; I don’t know if only one had been visiting and depositing its remains for the past few days. I did not try to clean up, but I knew that if I tried scraping they would crumble into powder.

It will take a lot of washing. I let them stay for now. They are on the outside. The window is shut. It will be difficult to reach. Too much energy to expend on something like that. Yet, the thought occurs that a bird stayed here long enough to share its most private moments.

Those splotches are moments that have turned crusty like moments are wont to do.