Cleaning

I gave myself a vacuum cleaner, and I vacuum whenever I can. When the dust reaches terminal mass. If you live by wood, if you live by wood then a fine ash settles everywhere. I repeat myself. That last armload of wood turns into an adventure. I want to roll a smoke but my fingers don't work. This happens if you live alone and don't give a shit. Both upper arms are sore, Eric Clapton playing John Lee Hooker. That's something. I roll over in my sleep. If that then this. No one should live this way. I'm wearing knit gloves as I speak. My outfit is a joke. I look like a nut-case, but I'm fine, beneath the disguise. Ani DiFranco. I hurt, but because I hurt I am alive. Hold that thought. Hey Joe. John Lee Hooker, "Black Snake", then Ray, I guess. Doctor John. It's all over now. Cold. Didn't get above 15 degrees today and colder tonight. I spent a few hours outdoors, came in made another pot of grits with acorn meal. Cheese grits, with chilies, is fast becoming a favorite food. Out the window snowbirds attack the sumac heads. One patch of blue opens in the overcast, sunlight on falling flakes is prismatic. One last walk. The word barren comes to mind. Harsh, stark, and barren. Drifting snow shows graves clearly, I count 19, but don't trust that, my count is always different. The next hollow over, the one I think of as Church House Hollow (because there used to be a church there, something fundamental, with no mediation between the believer and God), is almost completely obscured. I sit on my foam pad, on a stump, with my gloved hands tucked under my armpits, and consider the frozen world. Even wearing insulated Red Wings, my feet are frozen, my nose is dripping a clear liquid that freezes on my bibs, my ears are cold even under Linda's hat. Realize I need to get home. Inside, it might be 60 degrees, but probably not, I strip off a few layers, warm my hands over the stove until I can roll a smoke, retreat to the sofa with a blanket and read a few chapters of "Suttree", holding the book against my knees with a gloved hand. A bare existence. Chicken broth, with a slug of whiskey. I open a can of pork and beans, heat them on a corner of the stove, eat a small can of sliced pears while the beans heat; again, I don't use a plate, eating right from the cans, like a character in fiction. Someone's eccentric uncle. I don't correspond even to myself. The wages of independence. If I die before I wake, my soul to take. I make some biscuits because I want a vehicle for butter and jam; they're good, but not as good as my mother's. Something to do with working the dough that I don't understand, the intricacies of pastry. I understand the theory, but my hands don't get it. I make 5 lumpy biscuits, and while they're baking, I make a sausage gravy; 2 biscuits with gravy, then 2 with butter and jam, the can of beans. I can't think beyond that. I'll go to bed early and get up early and start all over again, I don't know any other way. Take the hand you're dealt. Something like a Miles Davis tune, where you just bleat once in a while. I love Miles, don't take me wrong. A bleat is often the only response. I notice I grunt more often, as I get older, I don't know what else to say. The wind is a whisper in the trees. Time invents itself.