The Threshold of Amber

Light thickens on the windowsill, no longer swift, no longer gold— a molten pause between the hours.

The sparrow has forgotten to sing, held in that amber stillness, where shadow and warmth become the same color, the same breath.

I've learned to wait in these margins, where nothing asks permission to change, where dust motes drift like small religions through the slant of an ordinary afternoon.

Time tastes different here— not the hurried edge of morning, but something that settles, something that stays.