Start Again

Two large birds go into a bar. No. Stifled giggle. Two guys are walking down the sidewalk, one of them notices another person they both remember. Neither can remember her name. The moment passes, the characters too. It's as if nothing happened. I didn't drive in tonight because the driveway seemed delicate, carried a huge load, sherpa mode, like I was built for it. Wind in the night, but warm, 5th of March and no fire. Last of the bean soup heated on a hot-plate. Good enough. We must agree on a set of signs. The last vehicle should clog the driveway, that could be a rule, but we never know which is last. Always a problem, if you're not talking. It all comes down to usage. Imagine the scenarios. Imagine the punctuation necessary to make a point. I have a list, I know what some things weigh, I can extrapolate, I know I'm in over my head, still, it's dark, the wind blows. Fox prints around the puddle where tads had died, but no sign she ate them: just looking. Nothing is what it seems. I could be angry but I'm not, who cares? The robins are sure the season has changed, one today, below the floodwall, was a capon, looked large enough for a Robin Pot Pie, but I'd never. Song birds have a special place. Make a note. Just because you haven't doesn't mean you'd never. Whatever that means. A billboard, another sign, might say something, it might not. Meaning is a can of worms. Consider any interaction, what was actually said. Everything is called into play. Stick-ball on the streets, what you chose to cook for dinner, the depth of the river at flood. It's a mystery, the sense we make. I'm sure you think you understand me, I hope you do, I don't. A cartoon, close as I can get, if I understand that word correctly. Getting a leg up on tomorrow. I see where I think I'm going. Stick figures. Arrows. Janitor left to his own devices, as Pegi, Sara and D working on revised budget for next year. Cleaned. Basement mostly, as far away from the budget as possible. Needed drinking water, so left a few minutes early, before projected rain, drove up the driveway. The easy life. Need to start a list toward the reunion, get my ducks in a row. Great facilities catalog in the janitor's box today: portable posts and ropes, stanchion rope and chain items, clicker prize wheels, baroque metal display easels, classic banner stands, standard baby changing stations, literature display holders, I love this stuff. The new land, captured behind a dike, is polder. Ten years in western Colorado and Utah, where salt domes lurk beneath the surface and irrigation brings it to the surface, tens of thousands of acres turned to salt fields, and I often thought about what succession of plants they use on polder, to bring it into cultivation. Lots of cow dung, then something fast that would fix nitrogen. There's probably a book or several. Led to a consideration of tidal nodes, stay with me here. As a kid, on the Atlantic coast, then as an adult, living on an island, I've always been fascinated by tides and the littoral. Key West, where I spent 18 months in the water, I must have been 14, has almost no tide, inches. Highest place on the key, the cemetery, is maybe 14 feet above mean sea level, which is, I suppose, the average between high and low. Mean. A dike at Bear Creek on the Bay of Fundy, would have to be really high. But the dikes in the Netherlands aren't tall at all. Must be a node. What the hell is a node? It's the moon that's behind this, depth of water, currents, the flow. The push. I understand the principle but the algorithm is complex and I wish I knew more math. I can't solve for even a single unknown. I'm at the brink of being spam; if you look closely, I never graduated from High School, I admit that the sexual harassment suit against the nun was bogus, but I thought I was making a point. That the tables could be turned. Fuck me. I will not back nor will be backed into a corner. Take it to the bank. You and your family are not me. I really don't understand your family at all, nor do I want to, ignorance is bliss, what I don't know, better than what I suspect. We talked about this, what people had seen.