Lonesome Wail

A coyote answers a train in Kentucky. Takes me a few minutes to remember where I am. It's cold again and I feel around for a blanket. One place other than another, not to put too fine a point. I have a very good map that pin-points my location but it isn't much solace against the confusion. I turn on the radio and there's some small comfort in the delta blues. Clapton playing Robert Johnson. Bach, played beautifully, on a solo horn, a canyon in Utah, no one for miles around. Or that time you walked four miles to eat a donut. Not that I would change a thing. I like being aware of where I am, even when my left arm has gone asleep and I fall off the sofa. Fucking blanket, man, my feet got tangled up. It's already tomorrow, the news comes on, and I've heard it all before. I hate to be a stick in the mud, but who is blocking what? The Easter Break? Bunnies and eggs? Congress is a joke. In the trenches, the poor steal from the poor, no one wears a suit, and a tie is just another way to get strangled. It's a melancholy. A folly. Duke Energy and their coal ash. Philip Glass soundtrack. The tops of the poplars are beginning to bud. The valley bottoms are blushed with new growth. Drove out to B's to give him some recent literary articles and we chatted for thirty minutes. On the way back home I picked up a couple of pre-cut rounds of firewood the power company had left from clearing their easement. It's deeply satisfying to find pre-cut firewood. Like finding money. The poplar buds are quite bland and fibrous. Stopped at the lake, my last time out, and harvested a mess of cattail shoots, and they, by comparison, were wonderful, crisp and toothsome. You could live on a diet based on cattails and acorns, if you grew a few peppers on your windowsill. I have the last of the codfish cakes with a coddled egg on toast. Then curl up under a blanket and finish the Harrison novel. Another successful day. Fell asleep, got up at five to finish the Harrison. Brisk walk at dawn. I can see clearly that the Bobcat is hitting the compost pile. Wet solidified ash is a good medium for tracks. And it's tracks, in the newly solidified mud, that I read for a good part of the morning. Particular spots, a small puddle, can reveal an entire history of actions and interactions. When I had the larger frog puddles, the banks were an epic poem. Aimless through the day, I wanted to hear an interview with Norman Blake on NPR and I had to keep reminding myself. He's one of the great guitar players ever. He and his wife Nancy, a wonderful cello player, were married, then divorced, then married again because the divorce didn't take. It's a good interview, he's extremely casual and plays bits and pieces of old songs. It's a very nice hour. That was my entire plan for the day, though I do have plans to make a pork dish for dinner that might last a couple of days. Cubed loin chops, brined, then seared, and turned into a pan of caramelized onions and peppers. A rice side dish, so everything will end up as pork fried rice in a day or two. This meal is what I remember of a meal I had in Provincetown decades ago. I've always perceived recipes as being ideas. The pork dish is fairly complex and I spend several hours, reading at the island, stirring things. I'll clean up tomorrow.