The mystery of the living room window, the membrane.

The clouds right now are the Pillars of Creation.

Above a shaggy horizon of tropical trees–shapes of hydrogen from deep space!

Heat beyond our conception, surrounded by absolute zero…

*

Miami, in a heat wave.  There’s no going out in the day.  Sun-blasted streets.  Ocean hotter than blood.  Fish dying.

We’re lucky to live in a bubble–with AC, supplies, work.

A biosphere.  In the big window, masses of trees.  Continued in here by plants.  By you, moving from room to room.

The sun and trees, with their roots in still-wet earth, interact.  You breathe, speak, laugh…

The window somehow keeps out the heat, lets in the light.  Keeps out, I think, the silence of the melting tar.

We’ve evolved to handle the chilled air on our bare skin. 

Delicate creatures, comfortable only at 76 *F.  Moaning otherwise.  Feeling infinite gradations within that one degree.

Music plays in the dome.

News of the world.  War, hate.  Families grieving.  I have a membrane to let in a taste of this, screen out the rest.  You, less so, are crying.

The rooms are harmonious.  But the candles scare me, the naked flames.  The knives scare me, the naked blades.

In room 3, you’re working.

Looking up from my work, I’ve been tracking the sun’s progress.  It’s now quite low.

A green parrot lands on the palm in the window.  Flies off into heat waves, like Noah’s dove; does not return…

The sun is now pink!  A perfect disc, etched, with no glare. 

You come with me to the window; holding hands we watch it touch the trees, sink into their green jelly.

It’s time to go out, in the so-called cool of the evening.  Into air like overheated fur.  The beast has found water, and shade. Shivers with pleasure, which we feel as breeze.

Other domers, in doorways, test the air.  Creep outside.  Across the street, surrounded by industrial fans, people are gathering for a drink.  Chilled wine, frosted beer mugs.  We join them.