Saturday, July 9th, 2005

3:26 pm
back from texas

My connecting flight from chicago dipped through remnants of a tropical storm near manchester. I watched the beam of landing lights shine off into clouds whipping by as sheets of water flew into an engine outside my window. The strobe at wings' end illuminated droplets, freezing them in random positions for an instant. The light was so brief that they weren't streaks; just points of light lingering in my mind where drops no longer were. Somewhere down below in the storm my future wife waited for me, with our future child slowly cooking in the oven of her womb. I was gladdened by the thought of that little being gestating in a soup of newly won happiness. Caprice.

She drove me home and we talked of the impending wedding, impending child and the unfolding joyous change in our lives. The next day she left for work and I took the flat of lettuce and squash someone had left on the tailgate of the truck and laid it on the damp edge of the driveway. I loaded the truck with trashcans (punched holes in them to let the fetid water out) and bags from the kitchen, loaded the Chihuaua and the Boxer into the passenger seat and drove to the dump to find it already closed. Returned from my jaunt of airing out trash back and forth through town, I prized the rusty mass of an ancient meat cleaver from the end of the old board in the barn, and with the flat of rootbound plants, ducked between wires around our small garden. I dug holes with the rusty blade and planted squash and rows of green romaine lettuce, disturbing the odd worm or grub in the process. Beans were blooming, small green tomatoes hung on vines, and I tossed inevitable rocks I turned up into the meadow. Above me, clouds of the spent storm hung, and mosquitos whirred around me languidly. Beyond the clouds, the sun shone and icetrails of passing planes doubtless hung. Above them small metal cans we'd flung into space spun endlessly, and beyond, wordless stares of countless suns were lost in the blue of sky above clouds.

The world? A droplet shaken from the bill of a crane, in a quiet swamp, catching moonlight.

(taxonomic specimen from the archives)