Catching Up

Flagrant lie. I know I'll never catch up, not completely. Too many books to read, pages to write. Yard work, clipping, again, until my shoulders cramp. The new rake is a superior tool, stout enough for me to exert the necessary pressure. Quick trip to town to do the laundry, stop at the library, they called, my Inter-Library books were in. Thoreau's poetry, which is actually fairly dreadful, a book of early maps, a book on bridge failures (it's always stress), and a history of what various cultures use to mop floors. Left-overs for dinner so I can read for several hours at the island, grazing, in both regards, for sustenance. My kind of party. I keep bookmarks in my tee-shirt pocket, make a small pencil dot at the passage I want to read again later, leave a bookmark. Jot notes on index cards, get other books, to join the party. Cleaning up after these bookfests is a pain in the ass, putting books away is not really a job you want to employ me to do. I tend to stop and read a lot. Often, I'll stop and roll a smoke, get a drink, and settle right into my reading spot on the sofa. Not a good sign if you're interested in productivity. I'm a poor bet, in that regard, at any rate, except that I pull my weight at the museum. This has to be the best last job anyone ever had. It's a perfect fit. That I'd end up wearing white cotton gloves, moving very carefully, hanging a painting worth half a million. Then, later, repairing the damage done in hanging the painting. It's perfect for my tool-kit. This yard-work I'm not so sure about, but the fire scared the shit out of me, and I want a green buffer. I saw what grass could do to a ground fire. I stopped today, coming back in, and looked closely at the burnt-over ground for the first time. Really interesting. Dirt must be a great insulator because things are already emerging, dock, and even trillium. The only trees that burned were dead, late April, the sap was up, no way a ground fire could burn a living tree, would have to boil off all the sap first, and that wouldn't be possible, in the few short minutes a ground fire was around. Realize I'm looking at the nature of fire. It's a natural thing, this incredible phenomenon. Fire and flood are nature's way of handling things. Whoever that British guy is, is correct, It's all an integrated system. The Polar bears and the butterflies, I'll assume, you'd agree. Nod, if you know what I talking about. Listen, it's still soft green, anything can happen. He might pull it out of his ass. Maybe everything is for naught. I'm on salary, is there a problem here? A detective agent interviews me, I don't seem, I merely am. What the fuck.