sometimes I wonder

do you
ever
think of me
sometimes I wonder
what if
what if not
and everything in between
sometimes I wonder
that I wonder
which is wonder aplenty
sometimes I suppose
I wonder
which is just as good
sometimes I forget
to wonder about wonder
which is my loss
though wonder
still awaits
me there
fresh and fierce
patient and planted
mountain solid
and the trickling stream
the chickadee
and snow spilling off the branch

Dog Days

After the deed was done or maybe before: she mused "you're like my dog" an elegy a loving postcard mailed to me sprawled there summery spent beside her as she sketched her affection toward Rusty or was it Sandy maybe Rex his loyalty love obedience and companionship so I edged into sleep an afternoon nap against her arm her leg her side as she read, her Rolex off, her diamond stud earrings on the nightstand, cues for unshackling as a prelude to unbridled intimacy. So I gathered I knew what she meant by the canine compliment. I was fine with it not a slight not a condescension but a treasured tableau in her memory's slide show and now mine as well fast forward a decade plus and Doug is dying, everybody knew it would be the last day, a Friday, after Debby had told me the previous Sunday "get up there, he's not coming home, he wants to ask you something," now his last, and my last "goodbye, I love you." Doug in his hospital bed looked at me as I brimmed into tears and he said "it's all right it'll be all right" then he tousled my hair he ruffled the hair on my head as he would have to Divitt the same dog who nearly bit my arm off on the night of Bush v. Gore in 2000 because I grabbed his bone, Divitt, a perfect name echoing the divots of every weekend's rounds of golf, a so-called sport I never played, with Doug or anyone else. I stared into your eyes and I knew it was okay and would be after and forevermore. You asked me to "read something" at a memorial and who knew that request would be such a gift, such a gem, because we never so much as once even swung a golf club together, unlike all those other partners on the fairways and greens who I figured knew you more and deeper didn't they, so why me? Why ask me of all people sort of like what they say about Christ and the disciples he picked why me they all presumably said. Such a revelation, the first of that year, 2005, the discovery of death's secret surprise, death's wink and a nod, the magician's rabbit out of the black upside down top hat. Richard, speaking of golf, six months later, November, in Florida, "let's go hit some, go to the driving range," straw hats, blazing sun, gently kindly "hold your hands this way, yes no that's it, careful, slower, no that's fine" almost hit golfers in the nearby rough but that CLICK! oh God! the sound of it the jolt in the hands resonating echoing into the arms the soul. Richard my brother, we never said half brother, too weak too tired to swing, sitting on the bench, the blistering blaze of light, its merciless scorch. And this was the slide in the carousel, the slide show, freeze-framed, after his death, the ferry to the yonder shore, this the wallet-sized image, the frame of future sentiment and loss, your plantation straw hat the artifact of a Monday afternoon, the farewell in the dark Tuesday morning, you in your bed, did I say good bye or I love you, probably not, though we both knew, to find out later your childhood prayerbook and rosary beads were there under your pillow. Dogstar pointed tooth hair of the dog long in the tooth my life as a dog doggerel mongrel sobs and all that. Then, last year, Maggie put down, across the boulevard from where I sit, tapping keys in the battleship dun afternoon, her eye left open, where did she go, so quickly, invisibly, effortlessly, the hideous simplicity the reckless rudeness of death, to every man woman child dog or leaf, you me and everyone and everything else. I went into my car in the parking lot of the animal hospital. Hospital. Inhospitable Last Exit. A rainy Friday. I wept against the steering wheel. How can I ever leave this parking lot. What can I do. Where can I go. What do I do now. Where's that sought surprise. Under the Tuscan sun, the Syracuse rain.
 

auld lang syne

Is it a looking-back? Or a looking-forward? Does the calendar turn if the Times Square ball doesn't drop? At the prick of midnight, the nadir of one year, the apex of the new, that is, the apex before the apex before the start. 00:00. 12:00. The exquisite edge, ultimate cliff, razor-tip Now, never to be repeated, never new again, but now in Now, of Now, for Now, is Now.

merry merry merry

If I say "merry" and ask you what immediately comes to mind, I'd bet good money that "Christmas" would be your reply. Right? I can't think of many other constructions in English that are so consistently paired. (Paired. There's a term used ad nauseam.) Yeah, "happy" followed by "birthday." No others come to mind. Help me out. Is it the same with "joyeux noel" in French?

Why "merry"? It could have gone myriad other ways: happy, joyous, pleasing, blessed, fine, cheerful, glad, sweet, exciting, holy. Okay, not quite myriad. But you get the point.

"Merry" itself has a fascinating history and evolution. The wonderful ("wonderful" instead of "merry"; there's another one) Online Etymology Dictionary traces merry to "short duration," as in "time passes quickly; enjoy it now while it lasts." I like that Zen element thrown in there. Impermanence. Transitory. Have you ever heard a Christmas sermon focus on that angle? Neither have I. It'd be a rewarding hybrid of notions and traditions. (No, not me. I'll spare you my attempt at such a homily.)

Not surprisingly, "merry" also has seedier (see below for the innuendo) senses. The Online Etymology Dictionary cites "merry-bout -- an incident of sexual intercourse." Fun! Following the same line of carnal logic, or passion, "merry-begot" was a way of describing "illegitimate" or "bastard."

Merry, merry, merry Christmas, or anything else.

drop the mic fail

I do the perfect one-liner, the coup de grace, the quotable quote, the searing stanza, the erotic epitaph, the remember-me-by-this, a luxurious last hurrah, clarion coda, zinger deluxe, epic epigram, frame-worthy finale, embroidered ending, signature sign-off . . . 

the triumphant drop the mic . . . 

. . . and then stay on the stage
 

Hymn to Heavy Metal

Crumpled metal as if sculpted. Dangling wires. Sagging wires with frayed skin connected to transformer. Weeds growing from cracks. Rust. Graffiti. "Hence False" on the nearby rolling freightcar. Fissures in skyscraping iron structures. Cogen plant. Dead. Unburied. Absence of steam, vapor, exhaust, particulate matter. Wind-rippling silence. Clarion call of afternoon sunlight. Solemn parade of dead turbines in the foreground. Failed saplings spawned in heavy metal. Groaning background freightcars. Hum of paper recycling plant to my back. Trucks delivering gypsum. Drooping sheet metal. Unround holes. Swallowing silence.

the fountain

I sat there on a wooden bench with iron railings at dusk. Golden September evening. Smoking a cigar and nursing a coffee from the shop across the street, I found myself staring at the fountain in the square. The endless trickling. The silent journey, unseen, of the water upwards, to the pinnacle spout, after which it trickles down in stages, filling black wrought-iron bowl- or plate-like platforms that fill and spill until the tricklings reach the pool at the bottom. And then repeat it, seemingly forever. It hypnotized me, mesmerized might be a synonym. But neither says it. Some kind of serene spellbound. The fountain so eternal in quotes but eternal enough for me right then. Is this why Rome is The Eternal City, because of so many eternal fountains? It reminds me of an old joke, the one about a search for the meaning of life with the guru delivering the punchline, "You mean it's not a fountain?" The joke was on us. Life as a punchline that nobody gets. The fountain tableau transported me to wonder: for how long have humans built fountains and how did they work before electricity was supplied? (Something I refuse to research. Why spoil the fun?) You'd think water fountains prove there is such a thing as a perpetual motion machine. Except. Except for water running out. And time running out in trickles like the fountain drippings. Naturally, even the fountains found in the wild, the ones we call waterfalls, are subject to the same rules of supply and impermanence. But enough of all that. The perfect light. (It was magical enough for four sets of professional photographers to stage and pose families, couples, and individuals for photos to be treasured on a wall until someone moves, storing the photos into an eternal anonymity in a box in a storage bin.) I snapped (screen-tapped) three photos on my phone, which is cheating for a wordsmith, isn't it. A magical hour magical enough for the golden retriever to want with all its canine desire to leap into that reflecting pool, only to be restrained by a tug on the leash. So, if I were in Italy and this were in a piazza it would be more worthy of memory and reflection? Who says. I rubbed the ash off the tip of the cigar against the bench, letting the ash fall to the brick pavers, careful to note no fire was possible. Earlier, I had placed the wooden match I had used to light the cigar and put it in the sink of the patina-painted inoperable water fountain nearby. Now that the lighted match was sufficiently cooled, I tossed it into the bed of ivy, where it landed in the dirt.   

dangling participles

Williams and Fayette. By the Legion hall. Misting. Next to the Open House. Closed. A skeletal artifact from before The Ending. Gutted. Payphone on a pole. Dangling handset. Nodding in the breeze. Forgotten. Booth or kiosk. Prenuclear minimalism. Raided. Metal, wire, plastic, screw, bolt, time, pleadings, hustles, cries, calls. Jangled coins an eternity ago. Deserted. Abandoned pedestrian loiterers. Freeze-framed headlights. Telling. Remnant. Torn. Ghostly metronome. Busy signal. Blaring. Humming. Buzzing. Waiting. Having had. Having been. Dangling.

paper clip phone bowl

It was here on the desk. Seconds ago. Where'd it go. Where could it go. It didn't just grow legs and walk away. Who took it. Say a prayer to St. Anthony, they say. So I did. Feel the surface of the desk, shake the sheaf of papers. Shuffle the pages. Look and feel on and under the chair, on and under the desk, in my cuffs, in, on, or under my shoes, between the buttons of my shirt, down my bra if I wore one (didn't), in my hair, under the stapler, under the mug, in the mug, in, on, or around the stitching of the rug, the walls, the ceiling. Search all of these once again but ever more slowly and with more concentration and feeling. Then in reverse order. Then randomly. Again. And again.

I have been swept from simple OCD to the shores of insanity.

Fear.

The universe is supposed to make sense. Things don't slip into another dimension. This isn't sci-fi or Harry Potter or Narnia. Objects do not evaporate or disappear. The laws of physics do not permit this. The laws do not stop for one paper clip. Nor does my rationality, its fragile vestiges. Like that time I lost my cellphone. I was in the first row of a theater, watching a ballet rehearsal. The phone was on my lap in the dark. I was shielding the screen’s blue light so as not to distract the dancers, so as not to be caught in flagrante delictu rudely checking inconsequential texts. I stood up. I heard a clunk, the phone falling. I felt around my body, my seat. Where did the phone go. I surveyed the floor, ran my hands under the seats, the scummy dusty grimy floor in front, my row, a cellophane candy wrapper, and the rows in back, places of impossibility, as if the phone were on a magical pogo stick. The fear of personal collapse, order dismantled, structure demolished. Repeat all those tactile and barely visual, slightly auditory, search exercises. My daughter the guest ballerina comes out during a break, after I went back stage and pleaded my case, my fervent wish for a universe with functioning rules, laws, and protocols. I told her of my incomprehensible plight. We spied a ridge in front of us. A slot, a gap running the width of the stage. The crevice had been there all along, a few feet in front of my first-row seat, several inches wide between the fixed floor of the auditorium. A movable stage raised and lowered for the orchestra. The orchestra pit. Of course. And that's where the phone dived, cascading into the deep dark. I couldn't have mailed it into that slot if I had tried. Mind the gap.

Back to the paper clip.

I discover a glimmer of hope — but not for finding the paper clip. As if in a biblical dream, I picture a ceramic tea bowl from Japan sitting in my kitchen cabinet. It was a non-occasion gift from a friend in America, a painter. I rarely drank tea from the bowl because it was too hot to hold. When I received it, I was given a gentle two-minute lecture. “You see that tiny squiggle on the rim? It’s not so much a mistake as a statement. It’s imperfect, unfinished. It’s meant to be.”

Until now, I had forgotten that tutorial on wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic of imperfection, asymmetry, impermanence, incompleteness.

A paper clip. A cellphone. A tea bowl. Me. Who knew we were cosmic cousins. I got up from my chair in front of the desk. Averting my eyes from the floor, the desk, and the chair, I walked into the kitchen, went to the cabinet, retrieved the tea bowl, poured water in the kettle, and turned on the right rear burner.

mother's day, first and last

so dawned the day

breaching my birth

of quickening light

so broke the bleak midwinter

bearing December's child

too early on

touch and go

no breastful of milk

while homeward bound

we now ask what

moonlight we can give her

besides memory

of love like a stone

dropped into an empty well

echoing

still

Gravity Eventually

anvil or feather

finch and hawk

magnolia leaves

lavender ivory

this April wind

landing

me

somewhere

letting go

the missing step at the top of the stairs

the nobody at the other end of having a catch

a call that doesn't come

an unrung bell

a cup unfull

unrumpled sheets, undented mattress

the text unreply absent the notification chime

the her-completed sentences unbegun

weighed against

the oaken firm footing

southpaw sailing toss leather bound

incoming incantations

clarion trumpeting presence

sonorously sounding

overbrimming nectar

gale force bacchanalia

gonging anagrams of U and I

subject predicate object desire

holding on for dear life

The Tell-Tale Clock

In the sunlit hallway, walking to what was hours earlier her room, I felt a coat of grief draped over my shoulders. This is going to be hard. Keep walking. Through the doorway, into the familiar room, where her stray molecules lingered and danced. Be quick. Jesus to his disciples, 'Let the dead bury the dead.' Scant days after the vigil, our shared presence and prayers, the mottled hands, her painted nails, the dry gulch, the vacant room.

A worker on the clock, I placed into a cardboard box artifacts curated from the nightstand's three drawers: greeting cards, hotel-sample-size packets of shampoo, sugar packets, a broken rosary, empty purses, photo postcards, 'rake' combs, hairbrushes, single mints in cellophane, toothpaste, skin creams, shoes, slippers, a keychain, crucifixes, an outdated page of monthly activities, an empty wooden box with ribbon and broken-seal sealing wax.

Do not tarry. The walls closing in. Trudge onward. Keep or toss. Toss or keep. Atop the nightstand, take and keep the plaster Jesus that silently kept watch with us, a family relic hearkening back to Dad and his holy rituals. Toss the shoes and slippers. Leave for donation the ones gifted at Christmas days earlier. Not as hard as I thought. Keep the exquisitely framed July portrait with her and the kids and me. 

From the closet, take a black and white sweater, a green patterned blouse, two vases, five plastic hangers. Leave the nightgowns, sweaters, pants, blouses to be cleaned and donated. Leave the incontinence underwear. Back to the nightstand: toss the dessicated red cyclamen and Christmas bouquet of cut bright flowers.

After a rapid-fire mental Ping-Pong, I grabbed the bedside alarm clock, hesitated in mid-air, and placed it in the carton. Take it. Keep it. The white still-ticking clock I bought so she could see the time, the hour and the minute, to face her as she lay in bed, sleeping, so much sleeping, or awake and awaiting a call, a visit. The alarm never used unless by accident. Why set it. And was it day or night. She barely knew. Black readable numbers. The relentless red second-hand stuttering its staccato circuit. Tick-tock-tick-tock.

From the bed, let's not forget the Creamsicle-colored luxuriantly soft blanket, a gift she cherished to no end, at the end; and the similarly velvet-soft gray pillow I got her for Christmas, which she may not have ever lain her head on. 

That clock. Why keep it. To what end. Take it out of the box and toss it. Toss it in the trash and walk out, carry the box to the car, put it in the trunk, and drive away. 

Which I did. 

Mostly. 

The box in the trunk. Drive around for 20 days. Open the trunk. Lift out the box, ride the elevator to the top, open the door. Open the box, retrieve old greeting cards to get addresses.

And the clock.

Tender time bomb tolling, o sole mio, stoic sentinel.

Tell-tale heart.

Hello, Mr. or Ms. Clock, you new resident on the Formica faux-marble countertop, the peninsula between my kitchen and living room. No man-woman-person is an island but is a peninsula, it has been said and sung. 

Which way to face it, where to place it. Do I muffle the roar of its ticking, wrapping it in a towel in a closet or in a bureau. Or under the floorboards. Or remove the battery. 

Smother it. Smash it to smithereens with a sledgehammer. 

What then.

What then. 

A silence, hollow or fulsome. A stillness saturating the sacred hours. Unsaid, unspoken. 

Inhaled, exhaled.

Hallowed.

Then sifted and settled. 

Into gentle spring rain.

Or, for now, perched on the peninsula, a presence a few yards from the ashes, across from the red-blossomed amaryllis, pattering.
 

Twelve Commandments of So What - Do Nothing

I once heard someone say: “So what. Do nothing.”

The “so what” was said to mean: whether you are addled, rattled, depressed, ecstatic, thrilled, terrified, despairing, or discontented, you are not the leading actor in your idiosyncratic, spotlighted melodrama. It’ll pass. You’re a speck of dust on an orbiting pebble in the cosmos. This reminded me of an off-the-cuff bit of wisdom a mentor breezily passed on to me decades ago: “Nothing matters very much; most things not at all.”

The “do nothing” part was said to mean: face it, feel it, suffer it, humor it, ride it out, don’t escape it. Otherwise, it will sneak up on you anyway when you least expect it. What is “it”? Any tide of emotion. Anything.

With all that in mind, here are my Twelve Commandments of So What - Do Nothing:

1. You shall pause, reflect, and shrug your shoulders.
2. You shall look at where your feet are.
3. You shall look up into the sky at midnight on a cloudless night in a deep forest.
4. You shall follow your breath, in and out, in a quiet space.
5. You shall accept and honor your self, with all your diamonds and all your rust.
6. Remember this day as holy, fleeting, and precious.
7. Restrain your tongue, pen, and Send button. 
8. Don't do the next right thing — not yet.
9. You shall let it come.
10. You shall let it be.
11. You shall let it go.
12. You shall smile.

the turning: vigil / aftermath

"Your mother has taken a turn . . . "

Eyes closed shallow breathing. Words into her right ear. A hum a chorus not a groan an affirmation on each exhalation some sort of yes. The right arm rising not quite flailing. Calls and farewells held to her ear. Softly hold her hand down her right hand the nails done pink the other day by Adrianna. Holding hands. Warm yet warm blood coursing. Who the child. I had clasped her hand such that her skin so papery reddened near her ring. The right arm fitful the left arm still the rest of her stilled. Her chest slowly heaving. The pulse in her neck. 

"Turn! Turn! Turn!"

That song. The Book of Ecclesiastes.

"It is written . . . "

Circle of prayer. Our right hands raised in benediction. The aura of presence. A surrounding. An upper room on the ground floor. Us. An us.

Unable to get the words out at first my throat my heart.

Whispers into her ear.

The paperwhites, the poinsettias.

Kiss on the forehead. Kiss on the cheek.

The lamp. The vigil the night. Now turned toward us. Slower breath. Her tongue caught between her dry lips never saw that before not her custom. The morphine.

Nearing midnight my hand nearly numb let go her hand our hands let go. The blanket from Evelyn to cover her the cozy covering she so loved. Warm still warm. Her chest slowly heaving. The pulse in her neck. Slower.

"I love you. Good night." Not good bye who knows why.

Morning becomes mourning.

So cruelly rigid unmoving hollow dry so angled. 

So infinitely other than mere hours before.

Kiss on the forehead not her forehead anymore. Cold. She is gone. To somewhere there here anywhere everywhere. Other.

Can't stay in that room.

Exit.

Into the hall into the world this new old world turned.

One less leaf. 

The First Last Christmas

The nurse practitioner had recently assured me: this would be Mom's last Christmas, not merely because she is 102. Her heart is failing, she's not eating or drinking much, the end is near. It is the fullness of time, her time. People say, "I'm so sorry," but I choose to look on the unsorrowfulness of her having lived a full life (her past participle hovering now between present and past), her current comfort, the relief, the letting go. But I understand they don't know what else to say. So, I knew it would be the last Christmas. This did not make me dour or gloomy. Instead, it magnified my visit and vision, and slowed me down. I looked at the sidewalk and the building entrance more acutely, marking it for gratitude now and for memory later. To my surprise, I learned she had already eaten lunch at Oasis, the dining hall. I was a tad disappointed not to lunch with her, as we did on Thanksgiving, but oh well. As I walked the several hallways to her area, I saw a woman slumped over, sitting in a wheelchair in front of the nurses' station. Could that be her? Kind of unusual for her to be sitting there, not lying down in her room. It looked like her. It was. She was nodding off. I tapped her right arm. "Mom, it's me." As suggested by her aide Nicole the day before, I brought her a comfortable pillow, one with a soft and plush texture, like the blanket one daughter had given her and the other daughter had given her as a sweater. "Who's this for?" "It's for you, Mom. How do you like it? It feels nice, right?" She felt it and enthused about its softness. "Who made it?" "I got it at the store. It's for you. I got it at Marshall's." "Thank you." "You're welcome. Merry Christmas." I drew up a chair next to her and sat in it. Then I popped up and got a tissue and tried to clean some eye gunk in her left eye, though it's the right one that gets closed from gunk because she sleeps on that side. The dry tissue didn't work. I talked to two nurses or aides in the hall; they said I should talk to the nurse in the office behind the desk. She used baby lotion or something with a moist cloth or paper towel; each eye; it worked. I felt she could've been more gentle, but then maybe it wouldn't have worked if she had been. I sat a little while and then popped up again to get her cold apple juice with a straw. She loved that. I gave her the straw three or four times for sips. "What are you doing after this?" "I'm going to go for dinner at Ethan's. We're going to have turkey. There'll be six of us." "When are you going there?" "At 5:30. Maybe I'll take a nap first." (Maybe?) "How are the roads?" "They're fine." "You're going to Ethan's. That's nice. What time?" "5:30." "You're having turkey?" "Yeah. Remember, I made it many years when Beth had to work. It's not so hard. People make a big deal over it. The gravy's the thing, the hard part. You had the best gravy of anyone, Mom. The best." Her eyes brightened. "Yes, oh yeah." "One time, was it in Stamford, we didn't have any Gravy Master and you were looking all over for it. All you need is a few drops." "That Gravy Master is the secret ingredient." 

A family down the hall had a golden retriever with them. I importuned upon them to stop by. I knew she'd love petting that dog. she did.

"Well, I'm going to go, Mom. Do you want me to take you to your room to lie down or do you want to stay out here?" "I'll stay here." I kissed her on the cheek and then again on the forehead. "I love you, Mom. Merry Christmas." "Merry Christmas. Thanks for coming, for always coming." "You're welcome. Why wouldn't I? Glad to do it." Our eyes locked. I walked down the hall, but not before waving to her and she to me, as if we were in the departure lounge at a bus station or airport. 

After the nap, I headed, solo, to Ethan's house, at 5:20. I felt but tried to ignore a low-grade hum of loneliness, sadness, and dreaded what-if-ness, not about Mom but about me and my journey thus far and today in particular. I feared a low-grade hum turning into a full-blast bass note. Approaching my son's house, I felt the evening darkness descend, the cold air blanket downward. This could be the last Christmas for any of us. Who are we to say? Who could be so cavalier or breezy to say otherwise? Sure, I'll be the oldest there, but we know what can happen in the blink of an eye, rudely disrespectful of age or station. And if a year later, we were absent, any one of us, or more, we would give the world to have this back again, pay any price, sell our souls and honor, anything, just this one time.

The shimmering snow crystals in the frozen, star-specked moonlight on the lawns to the left of the sidewalk. The town's bright holiday lights twinkling up ahead to the right. The patter of my footsteps. The strands of ice on the steps leading to the door. My hand on the railing. The barking dogs. The glass panes in the front door clouded over, frosty, from the condensation and warmth inside. 

luxurious decay

Luxurious decay. Obvious name for a punk band. But I'm talking leaves. October. October 31, to be exact. Autumn. Fall. Emerald rust burnt sienna crimson gold amber honey tangerine flame cream verdant straw ad infinitum. Luxurious and ample and lush and abundantly wild colors, textures, shades, hues, intensity. All that. And guess what? It's all from one thing: death. Yet what a carnival! A riotous festival. Swirling rot. Achingly gorgeous life and death cavorting together, or lazily reclining side by side on the welcoming earth.

vulnerable adult

I saw a sign. Upon entering the highway, Route 690 West, an electronic sign alerted motorists to a VULNERABLE ADULT, and gave a description of a vehicle, possibly accompanied a plate number. No respect or insensitivity whatsoever intended for that person or the person's loved ones (the ones whose concerns elicited the alert), but it gave me pause. Vulnerable Adult. vulnerable adult. (With or without the initial caps, with or without the proprietary nomenclature.) Are you a vulnerable adult? Am I? Yes, we are all sometimes vulnerable adults. Some of us, all the time. And we are vulnerable to the slings of time, the arrows of circumstance or history. We are at risk to fame and fortune, or at peril to poverty and perdition. And when we find ourselves vulnerable as adults, either individually or collectively, who is there to shield or save us? Should they? How? Or should our vulnerability merely introduce us to the icons of impermanence, the faceless faces of Nirvana?

I kept driving.

be leaf

After having some blood drawn and a urine donation (the stuff that folks do; these monitors; these reminders of zen impermanence; yes, I am fine, relax), I go to my car and see one bright yellow leaf, with a few greenish spots, sitting on my seat, the driver's side. I almost say, audibly, "Hi, how are you, so nice of you to be here; thank you for this visit, this mindful alert." But I don't. Or maybe I do mumble words to that effect. I think them, some variation of them. And mean it. I am grateful for this yellow leaf, striated, labial, thin, light, just under 2 inches long, about 3/4 inch wide at its widest. I just measured it. Yes, I brought it home. In the car, just after the leaf hit on me, just after out intro, the wind blew the leaf to the dirty floor mat on the passenger side. I picked up the leaf and put it on the seat. We've struck up a relationship. There I go again: it's mine, my leaf. Maybe when I go outside, I will just take my leaf with me and cast it to today's warm, robust wind.

But I won't.

summer

The end of July looms. August will brand itself as the height, or depth, of sweltering summer. Or the faint whiff of fall sifting down from Canada. It seems the summer raced by, just began. Is this perception merely a function of old age? The rolls in, the tide rolls out. It's all natural. It's all good.