Noticing Things

I don't really care what the authorities think, I know what I see, or what I think I see, which amounts to the same thing. The nature of reality is shrouded in a certain mystery, perception. If the fog is heavy it's impossible to see very far. Suspended vapor. Dim wit and previous experience might allow limited progress, but you have to move slowly. We're almost blind, that band of the spectrum we see. So narrow there's hardly room to move. Climbing a rock face, for instance, you're only interested in the next hand-hold. Keep from falling is the mantra you mumble. I have a long history of failure, and I wear it as lightly as I can, what I could have done, what I should have done, but I've noticed certain small flowers, recently, and they've called into question the nature of beauty. Or, let's say, Alicia's ankles. Not so much that they were, but that I noticed. Looking closely is a matter of habit. I recognize the limits of vision, you can only see so far, after that everything blurs. Everything blurs anyway, what we think we see is only what we think we see. I only mention the mice because they factored in somewhere. I keep a trash can full of kindling, lodged over in the corner, between the pantry and the cookstove; Glenn had wandered over there, admiring my cobwebs, and wondered aloud why I was keeping dead mice in the kindling bucket. There is a stack of two apple crates in that corner, on top of which I keep two pottery vases stuffed with kitchen utensils. The mice run across the top, and for reasons inexplicable to me, jump into the bucket, where they die of dehydration. This springs to mind because I hear a new arrival scratching around in there. A sound so familiar that I don't even have to get up from my writing chair to verify exactly what the sound connotes. The Language People have decided we moderns could possibly communicate with caveman based on the fact that twenty or so words don't seem to have changed at all. Seems like a leap to me. Yesterday there were two German guests that spent a good part of the afternoon in the Carter galleries. I spoke with them several times, took them into the vault, to see the sketch that would have become an oil painting that had been on Carter's easel when he died; and to show them the nude drawing, new to our collection (that are so dear to me, I hope to curate a installation with them, with several other early drawings; and over Sara's objection I would call the show Thirteen Nudes and a Catfish) and we hardly spoke the same language. Yet we did understand each other, more or less, when it came to line, color, and form. Some small purple flowers today that I couldn't identify, and the blackberry buds are exploding in a profusion of white sepals that is disconcerting. I found enough morels, in exactly the same area where Glenn and I were searching a week ago, to make a meal, on toast. What a luxury. Scattered shafts of light through scudding clouds reveals the underside of leaves. An X-Ray of the world. Google maps. Sonar or radar, or simply kneeling on a foam pad to examine something closely. The wind is acting up, and I go outside, to watch the way the way the trees respond. I don't have anything else to do, I might as well watch trees swaying in the wind. I've always been attracted to dancers. Something about where the next foot falls. Trees swaying in the wind is a good example. Dancing leaves play a part, broken light, what you might not have said. I don't pretend to anything, I just have a foam pad and a magnifying glass. A simple guy on a simple quest. First blackberry blossoms on the ridge. Down at the first ford, 700 feet closer to sea level, they started blooming a week ago. A great many things are linked to elevation, whether a hard hit ball, for instance, clears the left field fence. Took it upon myself to muck out the outhouse pit, which is a chore that always reminds me of other outhouses, in other places. It involves, here, tilting the small building over on it's back, so I can access the actual pit; other places I've built the outhouse on skids, and just move it to another hole I'd have dug in the interval. In the real world, digging holes is a fact of life. I should throw the dead mice on top of the outhouse, but I'm interested in watching them desiccate. I have a history with dead mice, and a long history with outhouses. Me and Bobby. Janis, lord god, that may be the best song ever. I have to pull away, that section of tall-grass prairie in Kansas, it's breathtaking, what you might mull in a metate with whatever you call that weight. A pestle, right? You and me, listen, I don't want to make a big deal out of it, so I'd rather deny any knowledge.