Yet More Recently

You have no idea, how much it bores me to transcribe, I only want to be in the moment, I took steps to avoid any difficulty: I ate certain foods, I drank less, I smoked less dope. Still, the very scale overshadowed me, I'm a peon looking for penance. I know I'm the guilty party, just want to know how many cycles of the beads I need to rub. Give me a number. You and yours. But I've lost my gullibility. The second robbery changed things. Now, I'm very private indeed. Protect myself with a shovel. 1st. Up half the night, then up early, my sleep patterns are truly screwed, get a fire going and eat before driveway and culvert work. Warming overnight and the bowed saplings are upright. The landscape has changed again, rain coming. We clear the driveway of obstructions, trimming away what we must. Focus our attention on the top culvert and catchment, as that is where failure has always occured. B breaks out the ice and I shovel leaves and fines so that the culvert can flush itself clean. We work quickly and well together, not much talk, B points, I shovel. There is no boss, only a task, we have our different tools. Running low on my regular Drum tobacco but knew B had a moldering pouch of Gauloises and I had a backup pouch of Zig-Zag I'd gotten at the liquor store; sealed the Gauloises up in a couple of baggies with a mini-peeled carrot a couple of days ago, took it out last night and mixed the tobaccos, not too bad. But after the culvert work I clean up and shave, zip into town for necessities, carry a heavy pack back up, unload, whipped. Take a nap, eat, coffee, light the candles and write. Soon need more lamp oil and candles. After a couple of days I wanted a clock, and in a feat of assemblage I put back together a Baby Ben I'd thrown against the wall the last time it woke me. I hate clocks, generally, but I wanted a time-frame, which is strange for me, because usually I don't. No guarantee that is frame I've been using has any reference to any other time-keeping system, but I can wind it up and it keeps some time. I had to rebend the hands back down, so that they would all cross each other without interference, and they're no longer straight on the flat plane, but they pass each other fine. I just made up the time that I started the clock, Ridge Mean, the prime meridian. The rain finally arrives, big drops that play a Bach Cantata on the roof. Fifth in the third spot charging home, change ringing. Triple Round Bobs. It might have driven me crazy, but I was thinking about something else, the way I might frame something. 2nd. Pileated Field Day. You have to understand that there is almost no color, everything is black and white, there is color, of course, if you just look closely, blow off a little snow. The sassafras twig-ends are an almost violent red, under a sheath of ice; the berries on female green-briar are a blue I've never seen before. Mid-day, I'd been bow-sawing red maple starter sticks off and on all morning, then a great lunch of pasta and an elk-burger patty on toast, with a slice of onion that would choke a horse; sitting on the sofa, smoking and reading after, suddenly these two red flashes. I know what they are, I'd wondered about them, and there they are. Here, now. One close, not thirty feet away, and one other is within that line-sight, there's another I lose, that happens and it doesn't bother me, out of sight, you know. The two I can see are the brightest color ever. A red that is so red it makes you reconsider red. That color occurs in nature? I had no idea. I thought I was making all this up.

Tom

They were in a feeding frenzy. I'm sure I saw
that and maybe made up some stuff afterward,
and it all seems so unnecessary now. I
should have just told you what I thought.