Off Day

Reading is a freedom made of words. It distracts me from sleeping and eating. So windy the crows, on wing, appear drunken. Two red-headed woodpeckers cling to a dying oak, their feathers are rumpled. Single leaves, freed from the thick mat that covers the forest floor everywhere within my extensive view, fairly whip across its surface. Startling cracks, like rifle shots, as branches break free. The top of an old snag crashes to the ground, on the path to the graveyard. I beat a hasty retreat. Anabasis. Better part of valor. No grilling for me. I open a tin of baked beans and eat them cold, right out of the can. I like cold beans. Wonderfully improved in my education, having spent the morning rereading, probably rerereading, some Guy Davenport essays, I tackle Olson's great poem "The Kingfishers", for the hundredth time. I've worn out two copies of "The Distances", the book in which it appears first, so I can always remember where to find it. Teenage angst will be on display at the museum next week: the high school, juried, art show. Always fun. Usually hard to hang, simplistic ideas about attachment. Beckett, when asked about the meaning of "Godot", said, "Oh, it's just me and the wife." A fake lady-bug lodges in my keyboard, for a while, I just don't use the 'o' but finally I turn the damned thing over and give it a good shake. A mistake. Desk and I covered in a rain of debris. Before I clean up the mess I study it with a magnifying glass. Mostly tobacco, with an odd admixture of insect legs and what I take to be small cracker crumbs. Reflects my lifestyle. The desk is such a mess I need to take everything off and clean it, but that would be a Herculean chore, so I opt for simply blowing everything out of sight. I reason that soon I'll need a nursemaid whose sense of cleanliness will exceed mine. Some house guests get a room in town, only visit after dark, when the squalor doesn't show. Steady killing wasps all day. They're slow and disoriented, latch onto a window. I have flyswatters at either end of the single room that extends across the entire front of my house, 13 windows, stretching from cookstove, at one end, my desk at the other, 36 feet in all, and there is a small pile of dead wasps at every window. Offerings to the Wasp Goddess, she of the carapace and black wings. Now a stink bug, on the window to my left, as I write, and I have to deal with that. It's approaching a lighted wasp from behind. I have to stop and watch. The stink bug realizes it has made a mistake, the wasp runs it away, across the glass. I wonder how I could install that show. I wad the stink bug up in a piece of paper towel, kill the wasp. In truth, I don't hate the smell of stink bugs, just like I don't really hate the smell of skunks. Some smells I can't abide, rotten potatoes or onions, chicken guts; but most smells don't bother me much. Smelling the stink bug now, on my fingertips (even through a towel) it's kind of nice, in a country way; the dry-down softens to a musky thing that you could probably market. Same would be true of a skunk scent. Skunkweed is the name of a very high end pot, usually Indica buds that are not fertilized, consider your demographic. Sunset brings some phenomena into play. A partial hazy cloud cover, with lots of sun breaking through. En Soleil is a term of heraldry, meaning surrounded by rays, like a rose, maybe for the House of Roses, might have that; but I suppose, because of the moisture in the haze, I'm getting these halos around tree tops. It's cool, prismatic and fetching. I killed the breaker for the fridge, the only sound I hear, is the wind roaring through the trees. I'd better SAVE. Because of something someone said I'm rereading Whitman. He uses the word 'yawp' for the way a hawk sounds, himself as an osprey, the "barbaric yawp", certainly true. His sound, at that time, was unheard of. No way you could say what he did. Not unlike Emily, in the uniqueness. Wherefrom spread. Three dots that seem to say it all. What constitutes meaning? Is three dots enough? Ellipsis. Glenn wants to focus on the docenting, the explication, and I'm good with that. This whole combined art thing is interesting for me, because I'm used to working alone. Working with others is both interesting and problematic. There will always be a clash of wills. Count on it. Even just two people can't work together, much less any more. I write alone for a reason, I can say what I want, I really don't need any approval. What I see.