Operose

Learning to describe things closely, that thought, flashing through my brain awakened by severe slanting fall light and the dancing of leaves; full color, such as we get this year, and the drying leaves rattle until a wind dislodges them, and the shadows are copious on the bedroom wall. Cold, pull on sweats and start a fire, make coffee, check the temp, outside is 34 and inside is 60. Finish the "Oak" book, finish a book of stories by Lehane, look at several polar maps. B over for coffee and we rehash the performance. Rest of the day I work outside for an hour then read for an hour, drinking green tea, first hot, then cold, as I heated up, and I stocked kindling and starter sticks, filled the woodbox with mild-weather stuff, considered the wings and arrows, shuffled and cleaned in areas of the house, where I rick wood against ice-storms or the flu. Living like this, there is no backup, if you fall you die; it's good to have wood, if that is your fuel for heating and cooking, so firewood becomes an obsession. I draw a map of the ricks I stack inside, so that I know what to burn when, fill all the stations of the cross. Kneeling today, splitting kindling, had a zen moment where the splits were exactly what I wanted them to be and my mind was elsewhere, thinking about an extra comma that might be excised, and both hands knew what they were doing, surprised me, that I could do that. Talked to my older daughter, away at college, deep into the theater program, and we shared stories.

Nothing if not lost,
everything being seasonal,
the way you might misremember
something that might have happened.