CHIRRING CRICKETS, PORCH light on now. Pizza hot from the oven. The house settles into a quiet of electric appliances and other outdoor noises of the neighborhood. A car door slams shut, neighbors smoke and talk by a bank of jasmine, sound of a saw blasts from the distance, somewhere else an engine turns over and men walk to a brown Olds parked these many years in a drive across the street. K won't eat no pizza, preferring instead rice sticks and raisins. And here we are with each other living in a dream of the end of the world of men at the beginning of things brand new. Listen to these crickets and the breeze on new opening oak leaves and a bright unfolding of blossoms on the redbud. The billions of gods and demons we bring stand on a petal of plum white falling in last week's slow drizzle. I see that plum white drift clearly still, thick wet blossoms like snow on the pink granite path. Owl feet. Kestrel. Voice of a jay in its cage at the Nature Center. Little beasts penned in a projection of forms dark and startling. The array of every day brings us here again, washed new by night's sleep or an afternoon nap, not eating pizza but holding instead a blue cup of water. He drinks from it, pressing it tight to his face.
Posted by Dale at May 6, 2004 04:01 PM