Sitting (March)

She’s sitting making notes at the seminar, for comfort tucks one foot under her thigh in a half-lotus. She leans forward or sits straight as the evening proceeds, absorbing words. Others arch forward in thought, foreheads a march of ideas. Some slump in habitual L-shaped gloom, await sparkling words to set them straight. Wheelchair occupant keeps her dignity upright. Others sprawl like parliamentarians at all-night sittings, napping or brawling where they sit. Hard-of-hearing is sitting close-to, placid with purpose. The speaker’s not sitting, his subject a palaeontologist mystic who once contemplated how we stood too early, and other evolutionary acts.