I'm Cool

First it was a Whip-poor-will. I'd flung the bedroom windows wide open for the cool early June air and this fucker flew into the red maple I'm tending as a specimen tree just outside. A young bird, testing his song, sounding awful; I shouted him away in the dark. Then that off-beat flutter that can only mean a bat and I grab my tennis racket, flip on the light, standing next to the bed, in my all-together. I look like someone awaiting a serve, but I'm naked and slightly drunk. The bat, sensing murderous intent, slips through a gap where I haven't trimmed. This is the way we start a day, so early in the morning. Briefly entertain the notion of a bunker, anything to get some sleep, but the natural world always wins. I need open windows, the smell and sound of what actually happens. Nothing makes any sense but certain scents calm me. I like the smell of old books, cardboard, sawdust, they anchor me. The rock cairn establishes order in a field of total disorder. What Goldsworthy does. Like a dream come true. How could broken rocks mean anything? What is meaning? My favorite smells activate memory in ways I can't control. I can be simply adding a anchovy fillet to a stir-fry and I'm suddenly in the boat, fly-fishing with my father, forty years ago. As real as can be. Crouched with my racket, I remember the first time I beat my coach. I'm on this, like ugly on a stick, but I still don't know what it means. Being able to do something is one thing, understanding what it means is another. You and your reality is one thing, mine is another.