Category: Writing

The neighbor’s lawn has gone wild with tiny purple flowers blooming among the clumps of grass. I don’t know how to name them. The choices are as rich and inviting as the small sparks of color: Dove’s-Foot Crane’s-Bill, Purple Dead Nettle, Creeping Charlie, Wild Violets, Carpet Bugleweed,  and the ever-foreboding Black Nightshade.

The robin perched on the branch puffs her red breast – begins to sing. She’s looking at me as we pass. For a moment, I think the song is mine. Who’s to say it isn’t? This is the selfishness of days. This world, this morning, this beam of light – all built for me.

How can this be the same sky as yesterday? Yesterday, there were three birds. Today there are none.  The color is different. The clouds are different. The very particles in the air are different. There’s still only one word for it. Which, in this wide beam of morning sun, feels wholly insufficient.  

The sun is bright. Birds flit about. From the dining room table, I’m thinking of the bed frame in the garage. Is the headboard made to look like two panels of wood? Is there beveling in the design? I’m picturing the storage cube, the moving cube, how the boxes stack and fit.  

Sunlight floods the dining room, makes the day look warmer than it is. The morning birds have been quiet. I’m the only narrator of this scene. I long to stretch the moment, to dawdle in reverie. Encircled, the I shoulds are lining up and closing in. This is how the day advances.

In the day’s final hour, I slouch towards slumber. By the bed, the body undoes its shackles, sets aside the weights of having moved through the upright world bound by gravity. Bones unkink with a deep exhale. The mind clears, awaiting dreams. The rest will be good. The rest will be good.

Birdsong bebops like springtime jazz. A call and response echoes in the trees. Red buds tint the edges of yawning maples and I’ve already forgotten winter’s empty shelves, last week’s paucity and freeze. And those birds. It’s as if they’re saying it’s good to see you again. I’ve been waiting. Welcome home.  

Soggy pine needles clump where last night’s rains deposited them. The curves and grooves along the lane remind me of the silty undulations of a dried-up river bed. The bottom half of the sun peaks out in splashes of gold elongating the already long horizon. A rippled cloud swims like shark gills.     

These shoes have lost their padding. There’s utility left in them, and the aesthetics haven’t broken. Maybe next season I’ll get rid of them.  And what about that sore spot? The hammer strike of ball of foot against pavement? The slight pressure that wasn’t there before? This, too, could be a metaphor.

Long yawns and heavy eyes. Cars with loud mufflers race on the boulevard. The lamps hum and the lamps hum. This is the best a tired mind can do while the lyrics to “Cornflake Girl” play in my head.  I’m obligated to say “big streeetccchh” when the dog stretches. Yawn again. Again.

The knob resists before giving way with a twist. The tank spits a soft hiss. The burner catches with a fist-sized fireball that rolls out and up and puffs to smoke. The second burner lights in sequence like dominoes falling. Bone-in thighs shishhh. A few flames kiss. Now, we’re cookin’ with gas.

All Along the Watchtower, White Men in Black Suits awaited the Season of the Witch. This wasn’t far from The Garden on Baker Street beneath The Shadow of Seattle. Nearby, a Sour Girl Fell on Black Days. In her Times of Trouble, she sang an Uptown Anthem – her private Symphony of Destruction.