strangers maybe in their chairs

Grey days like this one make the bodies of joggers even more improbable. How do they push so quickly through the sky’s immobility? A habit of motion is, I guess, as strong as a habit of stasis. I have a habit of this chair, this blanket, these books, this thinking which is a kind of motion, a jogging of the mind. I tell myself this, from my chair. I watch the sky and even the trees are still. I drink my tea even though it’s cold. I think about the phrase cold comfort. If I study the sky, I can see that it is not in fact flat. The low part with its faint striations of white, to the west a darker patch. Through the sun room door a stretch of almost blue. I cast my mind out there, past the stoplight, past the dark tree’s arterial branches, past the just-visible chimney on some building housing no one I know or love yet, strangers maybe in their chairs, drinking tea one of them has warmed and brought to the other without prompting or agenda. A small motion, setting it down on the broad arm of the chair, their hands faintly brushing as the other picks it up.