a glance
   a word
      a gesture
         a little sigh
      a formula
    the neighbor’s greetings
  the train schedule
a note on your door

quite clear to understand
not long ago
now seem to foster
strange significances

the code for
unequivocal interpretation
   no longer works
ambiguity hovers in mid-air

you hesitate    and ponder
before you speak
begin to choose words carefully
   hoping
   against your knowing
that this would make them clearer
yet feeling that it does not really matter
that whatever you say

may be received quite differently
from what it is meant to convey

likewise
what you hear and see
appears to lack precision
   possible meanings
   proliferating connotations
   of irony, deceit, hidden aggression
threaten to shroud familiar sense
make you question old axioms
in fearful apprehension of unperceived realities

signs of a loss of self?
your brain dissolving?
senility approaching before its time?
or just too much of that foie gras and cabernet
the night before?
will it be gone tomorrow
    with bright sunshine and blue skies
or darken your remaining days
    under leaden clouds of doubts and insecurity?

Or is all this just a reminder
that you should take
   nothing
for granted and that
the only constant in life
is
change?

           * *