Weasel Words

The venom is in the tail. I mean I can't find the ending. Beginning, in fact, to think that there isn't one, or that almost any of the petit stops might actually serve as a hard stop. The fox walks off into the sunset, the frogs grow up and the few that survive burrow into the mud, one year that particular crow disappears. I've been too self-indulgent, but I needed space for that. For the last couple of months I've just drifted, pursuing gossamer threads, engaging the natural world, reading until my eyes hurt. I've gone through these periods before, three or four times, and they're not unpleasant, more like a Zen state of just being in the moment. I think, in my case, this evolved from fishing, as a kid; watching the tip of a cane pole, without talking, for long periods of time. Also, the food was great. Fried potato sandwiches with a slice of onion, cold scrambled eggs with a can of sardines, questionable sausages with crackers. What doesn't kill you. All fires crown out west, because most of what's to burn is at the top of trees. Walking today, deep in the woods, I came across a spot where lightning had struck a tree. Not much dry lightning here, and it must have been raining intensely. The tree itself was a burned stump, and the underbrush for thirty feet around. A place to look for morels next year, as they love a good burn. Got caught out in a thunderstorm today, but I carry a heavy-duty 55 gallon plastic bag with me, with eye holes, so I just sat on a rock, watched the light show and listened to the thunder. The rain was hard enough to start bringing down leaves, and I thought, oh no, here we go again. Mid-summer is close enough to fall that you have to think about winter. The leaves are getting brittle, the sound of the wind is not the same, sweet spring susurration becomes a hollow tapping of the bones. Some of the maples lose leaves early, then just grow another batch, fecund beyond imagining, motherfuckers; I couldn't grow a tail if I was a salamander, sew a button hole if I was a tailor, kiss your ass if you were the queen of England. I've awakened in places that exceed your worst trailer-park nightmares. Having lived in tree-tip pits and caves, I'm not intimidated by the surroundings, my old dogs are at least as good as your old dogs. Usually I build a fire, to keep the tigers at bay, and try to sleep with my back toward a wall.