Dead Leaves

Dead leaf-fall is a noisy event. Working on the woodpile I stop often to watch, and listen to the hollow rattle. Clear day, by afternoon actually too warm to buck firewood, I take a slow stroll in the woods, wearing a bright red sweatshirt that I picked up at Goodwill. Not proof positive of not getting shot, even on my own property. Down the driveway, then up the logging road on the other ridge that frames the drainage. Haven't been over there in several years, had forgotten what a perfect and lovely house-site it would be. The vistas are much more open because there isn't another ridge immediately adjacent to the east and south. I imagine a house I might build there, walk back home and spend a couple of hours sketching floor-plans and a few elevations. Always come back to the same house, the last one I want to build, a simple 30 foot square, with a full-hip roof, based on 10 foot post-and-beam squares, everything natural and few straight lines. I'd do a massive stone fireplace, with a flue for the cookstove, completely interior, behind floor-to-ceiling windows on the south side, no windows on the north side, maybe some berming. 900 square feet, I think I could heat it with the light it takes me to write. Think about that as a goal, I'm using, right now, and I enjoy light, I like for my path to be lit, I'm burning 40, 14, 14 and 40 watts, a 108 watt total, and I bathe in rainwater, I'm doing all I can. What is the mystery about the shooting at Fort Hood? You train your youth to become killers, they become killers. What more powerful statement could he make? In all it's horror it carries a symbology. This is what I think he was saying, I'm a fucking Major, I'm a fucking physician. BUT. What's wrong is simply wrong, you can't sweep it under a rug. That 'I'm empowered, I have a gun, might make some difference. I had predicted this to D, I think he'll probably believe me now, I was more correct than not. Black usually concerns death, a body to be laid out, fetch the yard doctor.