Leavetaking

The rugs is stained and dark under my quiet feet.             

    

One day I walked through the kitchen, opened the back door and just walked on out.

I had my receiving dress on and a gun.

I didn't know I was even leaving until that morning when I stole the gun from him.

He was asleep, he didn't even know it.














I wondered why I was doing it as it was happening.

              But it was easy and that helped me to do it.     

        The sky was white hot noon when 

I stepped outside.

I didn't even look around, just headed straight for the road that ran in front of the hotel, east to west.

West sounded good, as good a direction as any.

I wondered if I should have planned this, maybe I shoulda gotten better prepared.

I didn't even have a coat!

But the time was speaking to me in that way that your insides do telling me to get out now! or else?

It was the else part that kept me from sleeping ever.


I wondered if I'd die out there, freeze to death or ?

So I told myself it's only putting one foot in front of the other.

And I kept on moving.



****************************

Nature Walk

We wanted to spend the day out in nature so we got in the car and drove for a bit.

We drove until we decided it must be time to stop, there it is NATURE all around us.

How glad to be here!

We got out of the car and went for a walk.

Saw many things.

Walked.

And as it started to grow dark, NATURE seemed to seize control of the happiness of the day and turn it  into something dark.

It was hard to tell what had changed, besides the light, to make it feel so...different.

Benign plants and trees suddenly took on sinister casts.

The shadows contained shadows containing nothing.

As we walked, with a little more quickness and a little less lightness, the voices started.

Hard to hear but THERE,  all around the voices of the trees and the shrubs and the ghosts and the bones of the ghosts.

The best thing to do was to let the talk float through you till it came out the other side.

We finally made it back to the car, in the dark, feeling as if it were a life raft in the midst of a hostile sea.

We left NATURE  to itself and brought ourselves back to the city, where the shadows belong to buildings and people, and the voices come from the t.v.

Night on the Island

i might move to an island far away from this hill.

if you have a boat, you will be able to visit.

i will make you tea, and give you a tour of the garden.


if you don't have a boat, you can wave to me from the shore.

i will stand on the island and wave back, if i see you standing there.

you can make a megaphone out of two empty cereal boxes and yell to me through it.

i will yell back by cupping my hands and projecting.

i don't know if we will understand each other.


if i do move to this island, i might come back.

but then again, ---

what if i grow to prefer it?

what if this marvellous hill becomes a dung heap in my mind,

and running and running i fling myself across the water to land in a wretched hudled heap on the island.

i was just kidding, i never wanted to leave in the first place



...........................................................

A Tale of Seattle

There had been too many dry days and the people were going mad.

You see, they expected any day to find themselves damp and grumpy, but instead The Sun! The Sun! The Sun!

The sky was a remarkable blue every morning.

What is this?  they asked each other.  But when will it rain?  Isn't this wierd?  When will it rain?  'posed to be nice through the weekend. BUT WHEN WILL IT RAIN?






On the friday following The Death of Our Brother, the citizens finally decided to lose it.

Drunkenness of all kinds prevailed.
Fire gatherings sprung up on every corner, outside
grocery stores and apartment houses.
Girls in ridiculously short skirts hopped from
massive trucks to drink themselves sick.
Everyone hurried eagerly to their next debauchery.

(Others observed with binoculars, exhausted by the unusual dryness and static energy building up in the air.)










The people went to The Hill and They Partied.

Faith and temperance went out the window, but there was a sweetness and chatty spontaneity that lingered in each interaction.  Huh.
At least until it turned ugly, as it often did.

As the night cooled into early early morning, the people drifted towards their homes

and waited to see the Sun again.


******************

FASTEST BLOG EVER

I decided to take a vacation.

The moon was full the night before I left, but it looked a little different.  

You didn't even look.

Once you helped me get the "car" ready, it didn't take long for me to get out on the road.

I had lots of fun exploring new and exciting places along the way.

I found the hotel ok, it just didn't seem to be a very safe place.

Took me a long time to find anyone, but I kept thinking I was hearing voices.

Must have been the wind, blowing through the sage.

*********************