Category: Writing

Gray clouds with mauve underbellies paper the morning sky. In this light, the dogwoods glow phosphorescent white.  It’s barely 6 am and I’ve wandered through half of a day’s worth or worry and pondering. Will it rain later? What’s for dinner? Where am I going, can I take the plants with me?

In this knit cap and open coat weather, there are no clouds. The slow morning sun blazes like coronation trumpets. Dandelion lawns have grown blowball tops. Grackles clack in the dewy grass as a slight breeze lifts a backyard tarp. Shadows slant in the kitchen where the light comes through the window.

Thick fog wraps the dawn in mystery. The neighborhood becomes a graveyard, becomes the jungle mist, becomes the war-torn streets in smoking rubble. The faint sun, three fists high from the horizon, emerges then recedes like the face of a ghost pressing through the heavy air. Soon, this will all burn off.

The voices don’t match the faces. This could be a game: find one voice out of the din, search the tables and conversations for the moving mouth and hand gestures that match. These people could be newts or pandas – eyes and noses and mouths that move. Chewing, talking, eating at the restaurant.

Steam rises from the painted blue mug warmed with lemon tea. It’s big enough to cup with both hands. Dusk fades to darker shades of dusk.  The kitchen light hums an electric melody. The thermostat drumstick clicks the heater on and off. The tea will be gone soon – with it, my thirst.

The day begins in the kind of dark, pre-dawn, and stormy blue I often see in paintings. It’s cold. The package shoved into the mailbox knocked loose the red mailbox flag. Snapping the wet pieces back together, my thumb freezes. My hand stings. The weatherman says it snowed in the norther counties.  

The lid to the sugar bowl does not go in the coffee mug. The lid to the sugar bowl does not go in the coffee mug. The lid to the sugar bowl does not go in the coffee mug. The lid to the sugar bowl does not go in the coffee mug.

Everything drips. A busted pipe in the apartment above, the one above this ceiling of clouds, has been running for days. Everything drips. The metal chairbacks, the table’s edge, the glistening needles on bushy pines. The puddles shimmer with pock-mark drops. Each drip a sour plunk or plink on this toy piano.

Green skies tint the evening light. A squirrel stands on the deck rail – front arms folded nervously into her chest as though she might say, “oh me oh my, the rent check bounced.” Her eyes, the color of black walnut, remind me of a teddy bear.  Swishing her tail, she scurries away.

Rain is on the way. A man and his black dog duck behind a car. We avoid each other on walks. Three minutes and 50 feet: pulling, tugging, walking, scolding, lunging, barking, snapping, correcting. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes later, one of us is still flustered, embarrassed. It’s not the dog.

The evening hours feel gumdrop slow and cough syrup thick. The NyQuil sky in my mind’s eye is midnight blue and sea green swirl. Hill Country blues drone, wail, and croon on the hi-fi. The surfaces have all turned smooth. Time is sliding by. Come on… come on and go with me.  

Lost lost lost. In my head I’m lost. The sun is out – shining bright. The day will ease into warmth. In my head and on my walk and as I make my lunch, I’m lost again. I’m building a national institute, fighting the good fight, spinning off projects that never get planted.