The kitchen smells of onions, garlic, bacon, and collards cookin’ on the stove. The rest of the house is wood-smoke and barbecue. Mesquite and hickory seeps in every open window. The dog doesn’t understand dance parties in the kitchen or the simple pleasure of a beer on a lazy back porch Sunday.

When it rains, it’ll be the type of rain that begins slowly and lightly and eases into steadiness. These aren’t the clouds of deluge. These aren’t the advancing thunderheads from which birds will flee. A house wren sings in a nearby pine. A line of shrubs bloom fuchsia in the graying dawn.

The echo of lumber and plywood being tossed on a demo pile reminds me of the echo of lumber being tossed. Reminds me of the nail gun pops of a roof being installed. Reminds me of the click clack sound of a skateboard jumping and landing in the concrete plaza. Click clack.

A single plane streaks across a slate blue sky. Its contrails glow white with hints of peach. It falls like a shooting star. When the plane is gone and the trail has disappeared, two blackbirds chase each other. This stop-motion animated sky can only hold one bit of action at a time.

Because there is no pool, no sandy beach, no rough jetty, there are no lifeguards here. No whistles to warn when out too far, or the currents are strong. Mistakes are easily made when no one’s around admonishing us to walk. In my closet, a beach towel. There are no lifeguards here.

The motor whirs the spool of nylon round and round chewing through the grass along the edges of the house, the fence, the shed. The noise is fat and slobbery like raspberries on a baby’s belly.  Daylight fades to the high chorus of rpm. Thankfully, I don’t need to hear myself think.

Savor the morning light, the coffee steam, the robin’s song. A squirrel bounces from limb to limb shaking the rain from grape colored maple leaves. Zipping birds race their shadows – up the walls, over the house. The grass is thick and green and drying out. Nature’s to-do list on a Monday morning.

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.