Mere Description

Nothing is ever the same. Looked at, in a different light, some particulars are different. Even simple trees are not themselves, but bars that break the sunrise. Falling out of love is an awkward thing, what is that vessel called, the crucible, in which the transformation actually happens, the pot wherein I melt myself. Two steps forward and one step back, losing traction, but a small net gain. Right here right now it can't get better than this. Where I find myself, a world of dumpsters and pop tunes, wrack lines and debris fields. Late at night, everything is a metaphor. Alembic. Everything is named except for the things that haven't happened; after the fact, we put a label on them, and then they are named to. I might call this dog Little Sister, just as a way of referring, it becomes a handle, I might just call her Dog, which is enough, an appellation, an explication, a name, in fact, that separates her from the field. But I resist that inter-dependency because I've never had a relationship that actually worked. If anyone was ever destined for loneliness. Even my dog keeps her distance. We end up with a hooded figure, whose face we can't quite see, dancing in the shadows. I no longer keep track of time. Got to go, lightning. Tremendous thunder storm lasting several hours. A break in the squall line and I figure to write until the next line passes. Hard rain, and I harvest 25 gallons of rainwater in a hurry. Finished setting up for the museum event today, then stayed late to help carry in the food and light the chafing dishes; got home just as the first drops of rain hit, fed Dog in the woodshed, cheese grits and bacon fat (cheap instant grits, I'm hoarding the good stuff). I ate on the way home, Buffalo Wings I snatched from the museum feed, tossing the bones out the truck window. Hard slog up the driveway tonight, on my feet moving fast all day, but the foot is better, I walk almost normally until afternoon. D called, on his way home after the event, said there was much food left over, plenty for our lunch tomorrow and enough to feed Dog for a week or more. So much water, I decide to clean and flush my system. I dump and clean the 35 gallon Rubbermaid that is my, what?, back-up cleaning water. The five 5 gallon pickle buckets are all clean, bleached and now filled with soft rain water. I dump them all in the Rubbermaid and start filling them again. I'm fine on drinking water, and I have 10 gallons of filtered water to bring in, the next time I can navigate the driveway, waiting, offstage, at the museum. I'm backed-up on juice, have milk and cream. The snow has just melted and now all this rain, we'll be looking at swollen creeks and the Ohio slipping its banks. Flood is a relative and inadequate term, but there will be a lot of water, dropping various deposits. The Scioto, cutting through soft country, carries a sandbar of silt, and dumps a considerable amount just outside the downstream shore-line, where it enters the Ohio. A transient but significant deposit. Sometimes it's washed away completely, but sometimes it has occasion to grow a ragged covering of grasses, a few bushes. Because of the web and flow, there's a channel between it and the mainland, I'd need a rudimentary boat. Not much more than a log. I could take over a few supplies and stay there for a day or two, a vacation of sorts. One thing I always find, in the natural world, is you have to be there. There is no substitute, nothing prepares you for the frogs, or that slanted light, or the pain you might suffer from a broken toe. At first I didn't think I trusted anyone, everyone lied. Then I realized everyone was speaking the truth, is so far as they could. A major Tao Zen moment, the Buddha is everywhere. What you say is what you are.