Losing Temper

Quenching in brine or oil is part of the secret. Steel is iron minus some impurities. It's all about holding an edge, pocket aces, say, or drawing to an outside straight. Over-building is the rule, consider the load, how it is carried, envision a line of arrows right down to bedrock: every joint represents potential failure. A good carpenter understands gravity. In the Cello Suites Bach builds inevitable changes, you can hear his mind work, when I close my eyes, the music becomes colors and I don't as much hear as see. It's the same as it used to be, layers filling in the background until the field is filled. Bill Evans leads the way to Miles Davis and suddenly there is sense where nothing was before. I think of Skip Fox doing a distorted imitation of John Wayne, grin despite myself, I'm not fooling anyone, I don't even like horses. There was a time I might have cared but I'm well shed of that, now I merely watch. Occasionally I might poke things with a stick, but otherwise I stay at one remove, wear gloves and overshoes. Too close to the sun, things tend to melt and become useless, you fall or fail and the result is irreparable damage. Peter Pan dead on stage because of a rigging problem. Beware getting too close to the flame. Trish and Pegi sleeping on the deck, I nearly cried, Liz took some pictures, maybe we can reproduce some aspect, but the whole is forever lost. I think about you and try to focus, but the edges blur, definition is a problem, what is meant. Call me, please. we can work something out, nothing is as bad as it seems. Tom Rush and all those singer song-writers come to mind, Norman Blake playing harmonics. Stripped of everything you are just a blob of shit, nothing, really. Careful what you ask for, what you get. Late, I'm listening to the blues, John Lee and Mississippi John Hurt, a pallet on your floor. Wait, nothing is really what it seems. I'm confused. I thought I had a handle, but it was illusion, nothing I could grip, the image of a paddle. I defer to whatever. I think I'm a fiction, down on the river, a janitor, nothing, really. Then they pick you up in a limo and your self-image changes. How many times do they pick you up in the limo before you change your opinion of yourself?

Tom

Nothing substitutes for the natural world. Three crows. Nothing unusual.