Tree Rain

Drips and rain all day, with falling temperatures; in the thirties tonight, and at midday I have to close the windows. Tornado watch and straight-line winds, intermittent power for several days. Several twisters nearby. So much water, wide scale flooding (I'll see tomorrow, on my whiskey and tobacco run to town) and more of the same coming. In an interval I had walked outside, and it was lovely. The pollen was all washed down into the humus, becoming one with sloughed skin cells and all the other crap that makes up soil. Slough is an interesting word. Cane-pole fishing for perch, I'm pretty sure there'd be hush-puppies with dinner. I knew I would have an advantage. Sequence is important to me, I keep track of things, fat puppies are good with a nut stuffing, but I rarely eat cat. My internal clock is screwed-up. Yesterday was dark all day. Rain and overcast. Mid-afternoon, I'd been editing some recent work, paring it down, sharpening the punctuation, I completely lost track of time. I wasn't absolutely sure what day it was. Not that it mattered, You know that story about Ishi hunting the deer. Preconceptions being put to rest. I was thinking about the opera. We see the musicians, they're shuffling around, tapping things. One of them has a horn, a sax, something mournful. Our female lead enters. She introduces us to Mad Tom, her husband, and Carl, her lover; she sings about the polluted Ohio as if it was a metaphor. The chorus sings a lament, almost a blues, hoe that cotton down. The bar-tender is a trans-gender baritone. Sure, I can do this, I'm always doing things that were impossible yesterday. Note the arrogance. "I think I'd rather roll right over and die...": various variations. It sets the tone, the nature of reality. I don't care. I play the cards, sometimes I look up a word. It's not a crime.