Nothing Everywhere

Steel gray dawn. The rain has stopped, the frogs and birds are filling the soundscape with a raucous chorus. I'm hungry, so I make an onion and cheese omelet, a piece of toast with jalapeno jam that would wake the dead, and a double espresso; not a bad beginning for a day that promises more rain and flooding in the low-lands. I don't really care, politics and weather are passing fancies, extremely local and ephemeral, while bedrock can stay the same for millions of years. Look at your hands. Shelby, for instance, has never done an honest day's labor, not that it means she's not a nice person, and she has great ankles, which in and of itself is enough to get by, the way the world is constellated. In times of crisis, I retreat to a tree-tip pit, a tarp as a roof, a stump as a desk, and write a few words. Mostly I focus on the middle distance. Nouns and verbs. Look at the Exeter Book, all that Old English unfolding. The library calls and I have some books waiting. Enough patches of blue to make a Dutchman's pants, more storms forecast for the afternoon, so I dash off to town, run my errands, get a back-up bottle of whiskey, all the makings for a ratatouille, and get back home just as the first drops spatter. Rain like pouring pee out of a boot. Serious rain, then that squall line blows over, the sun breaks through, and the world is so beautiful, sublime, that I weep, waiting for the final curtain. I stopped by Terry's place and he wants me to cook, maybe next week, and then on an irregular basis after that, which suits me. I'm cooking ox-tails now, the smell is killing me. I hate beef stock, so I'm cooking them in chicken broth and a very good Chardonnay. I scraped off the little pieces (bits) of meat, from the outside, into a lovely gravy, and dug into the marrow like man possessed. Smear this on toast and you have a feast. Another line of thunder storms, I'd better go.