Private Vulgate

The flat ur-stone skidded on calm water. I had forgotten about butterflies, but suddenly there is one. Blue, lovely, flitting around. Some honeysuckle is almost blooming, and the green-briar is leafing, which makes it at least visible, if not avoidable. This time of year, I sacrifice shirts to green-briar, and still bleed. I got interested in the attachment of those few leaves that last all winter, despite the winds and snow. Beech trees do this most of the time, but there are other isolated examples. The odd leaf. In most cases last year's leaf is separated from next tear's bud, the attachment withers and the leaf blows away. But in some cases (the Beech generally) there's a sheath that connects the old leaf to the new bud, and the new bud has to expand and push the leaf away. I suppose it provides a degree of protection. There's a nice stand of young beech down in the forest, hardwood forest is Beech climax, so the next time I go out I'll have to stop and take a look. I always carry a knife and a magnifying glass. In full sun, the hollow is beautiful; the maple are glorious after months without color. Asparagus was suddenly available, and cheap. I snap off the stems, to make a cream soup later, caramelize an onion, and fry the rest in butter with the heads thrown in only at the last moment. I made a simple country-fried steak with a pounded pork slice, made a nice pan-gravy. I keep my head above water. That's the test. Not drowning. B was over this morning, hunting a piece of plastic to repair a window on a house his former son-in-law wants to buy down the road. We talked about books for thirty minutes. We share a great many books in common, and talk with a mutual knowledge of book-making. A patois that must not make sense to anyone outside the trade. The former son-in-law, also it seems, would be very interested in buying my place, which I had only ever thought about selling a few times when it was ten below with two feet of snow, but it does give me pause for thought. Truth be, it would be difficult to imagine setting myself up, as well as I'm set here, and it would be so difficult to physically move. Too much paper. Proved to myself that I'm good for a couple more years, though it was an easy winter, just wrapping up in a blanket and reading. If I can get this whole data/computer/printer thing worked out it could be a very good year. By my standards, which are sloppy, I've done pretty well (a) not stuck in the driveway, (b) not arrested for any reason, and (c) bathing one last time in a watering trough before putting on some pants. I know those little dance steps are mice on the stove-top. A page out of the old play-book. Distract him with trivia, and when he isn't looking eat his eyeballs. I know my demons, they wear inappropriate spandex. It's not even tempting, but at least entertaining, to imagine just selling everything, the staircase, the first editions, the briar patch, and hitting the road. Paying cash for everything, staying off the grid, living in my truck, fishing the head-waters, and only eating native trout. There's a place, off Comb Wash, in Utah, where I could live undetected, or an apartment in Portland; live light, a foam pad and a magnifying glass. Everything else either falls into place or misses the mark entirely. It was cold, so I built a fire, butter wrappers and oak splits, I'm a savant at this, I can build a fire out of nothing, a pile of wet dung and one match. Butter wrappers and oak splits is a piece of cake. Half a moon waning, not that I'm worried, 27 or 52 years later the cycle repeats. Not even prime numbers. It doesn't mean anything.