Flower Petals

Whatever that lovely urban tree is. Non-fruiting Chinese Crab-Apple, maybe. Oriental Pear. I've heard it called a great many things. Perfect urban tree, perfect round crown and never needs trimming, Lovely white flowers in spring, falling off as the green emerges from under. Snowing petals today. Rain all day, brought the truck up last night, with liquids, so down the slope barely under control this morning, gets the blood flowing. Suddenly green starting many different places, first blackberry leaves, so the understory closes in, burned farm land in the bottoms, seeded in rye; early bulbs blooming in shocking colors after so much black and white. No fire for several days. Bad choice of wardrobe. Wore the heavy tan Carhartt sweatshirt (from Steph, who keeps me looking decent on the outside) but it's rainy/drizzle all day and I wear it out on errands and when we smoke, by the middle of the afternoon I smell like a damp dog. Late this afternoon, someone had gotten a catalog in the mail, I love catalogs, for the potential lists, and this one was make-up and underwear and perfume products. That new generation of scent sniffing where you rub a spot on the page. I was standing there, just before closing, passageway of the common room, rubbing and sniffing. Everyone at work knows that I study scent, a decent nose. D came out of his office, saw me, came over, -what you got?- -some smells, where you rub the spot, but I don't know whether to sniff my finger or the spot- -both, obviously- and he took the catalog to get a whiff. Oh fuck, what was it called, green, right, Absinthe. Not a nice smell. They missed it. Failure is good, because it gives us a spectrum from which to form opinion. Did a wonderful docent with two older ladies, coming back for the second time, before the show closes. The wrack endeth, the lord knoweth. Fuel for a later soup. These ladies were keen on taking a piece away, and I had the thought that we could get rid of some of it that way. Tomorrow I want to go to the Police Department and discuss releasing balls back into the river. There might be a crowd, so we'd need crowd-control, a generator and flood-lights. If we could get the Army Corp to release water from Greenup, at just the right time, we might achieve a standing whirlpool, and the balls would swirl. D asked if I liked the scent, no, no, I assured him, it was awful, but it was better than damp dog. I rubbed the spots on the outside of my clothing, so as not to be offensive, which would be my objective almost all of the time. A certain line of reasoning leads you to a certain place. I had to brush the white petals off my windshield, I couldn't see. I didn't mean anything. I rarely do, I'm shallow, actually. I'm more intelligent when I act something out, knowing what's coming, having my lines, than I am in any actual confrontation. It's good to rehearse what you might say. Like the Boy Scout said. Or was that the Girl Scout? I wouldn't imagine you exist anymore than I do. I do everything I can, but I'm stopped short. I had left the driver's side window down, to catch the breeze, and the wind, catching a loose gasket, sang a merry tune, I had the thought that I was in someone else's movie, I'd wake up, or something. Stopped at the lake, to gather my thoughts, but we were way beyond that, we needed to get home, to write to you. I'm confused, the conflagration of meaning: I thought I was looking at a wood-pecker, your honor, if you look closely, I just want to get shed of these flower blossoms, they obscure my vision. Flower petals falling like snow.