In a wild universe

Since I was awake, I decided to go get a glass of water from the refrigerator. Then I pulled on a pair of pants and I stepped outside with my cold water. The night was alive with katydids calling. The moon was an egg, tumbling just over the apartment block out across a couple of back fences. The grass under my feet was wet. Droplets too minute to see one by one were spread out over the earth. And all together they were reflecting the reflected light of the moon until the brightness nearly blotted out the stars where I was looking until I could almost count the remaining stars one by one.

Even as I turned to the darker portions of the sky, with some patience I could have almost counted the stars. Humans in these parts have illuminated the night on nearly every corner and then some. Still, sometimes even the view of the universe from my backyard is worth getting out of bed for.

I was in no hurry to be anywhere, but still too restless to stand still on the earth already spinning a thousand miles an hour beneath my feet. I stepped towards my driveway. I suspect that countless humans had grasped some of the dizzying sense of relativity in the universe well before Einstein did the math. The earth spinning and hurling around the sun every year like a bucket on string. The solar system, pulled along at astronomical speeds out along one spiral arm of The Milky Way. And Milky Way galaxy hurtling out to beyond who knows where at a little less than light speed.

And yet, in my neighborhood and with my own gaze, I am the only body not at apparent rest tonight. On my own, I am merely picking my way carefully in my bare feet along my rocky driveway down to New Hampshire Street.

At two o’clock in the morning, the traffic is not a problem. The asphalt still holds the daytime summer heat. The pavement is worn nearly smooth from the passage of countless car tires. When things get to be countless - things like cars and streetlights - the effect becomes measurable. Whether one notices these things or not, is another question. But tonight, one creature barely counts. Still, I move.

The water in my glass is still cold in my hand and the glass is beaded with some of the droplets in the sky coming near to me in the night. The water will quench one thirst. But it turns out that a drink is not why I am not back sleeping in my bed tonight.

Walking slowly up the street, the katydids call - but not to me. They are heard on all sides - but not seen. Tree branches cut black overhead against the brighter sky like a pieces of a serrated knife. Shadows crouch alongside of the houses on either side of the street. Porch lights. Solar lights. An occasional lighted window. And at the corner, a street light shines amber, brighter than the moon. The steel manhole cover in the middle of the intersection rattles a little when I step on it. I could probably read a book on this circle if the book had large print.

The moon hasn’t finished tumbling. A nearly negligible night wind wisps against my chest. I turn to find the pole star. How far beyond Central Middle School, a short earth block ahead of me now, before I would be standing dierectly underneath that north star. And if I could fly through space tonight, how long would it take me at my human pace to reach that single star, a point just barely bright enough for me to see from where I walk along New Hampshire Street. I watch my shadow grow taller and taller as I amble down the amber lighted street. I’m walking due north - by the star and by the street laid down in a grid.

A car’s headlights encourage me back onto the rougher concrete sidewalk. I pass our house. Plenty of deep shadows lurking under the canopy of trees and hiding under bushes.

And then I stop. I saw movement ahead. An animal was over there, just at the curb, twenty or thirty feet ahead of me. And then in a splash of dim light, I saw a white stripe down the center of its back. A skunk in the wild! It roamed in an urban environment, to be sure, but this skunk was as wild in its own mind as it could be.

I smelled nothing. The skunk seemed unaware of me. It skittered along nose to ground, never taking a straight line. I stood still. And then as the skunk moved away from me, I followed along from what I hoped was a safe distance. Mostly I stood watching, wondering about that skunk’s life relative to mine. The skunk gradually took its twisting and turning path farther away from me. When it started to cross 15^th street, I could see the skunk pretty well by the street light there, nose down, bushy black tail up.

Then a car came speeding down the street, just missing the skunk by a few feet or so and the skunk scampered back into the bushes on my side of the street and out of my sight.

I turned and looked for the tumbling moon. If it ever stopped falling, all the king’s horses and all of the king’s men couldn’t put this fairy tale land together again. As I walked toward home, I spied with my eyes the moon in an open space between the houses.

A bright night sky. Shadows below.

I wonder if I might be becoming a little semi-nocturnal, myself. But I won’t follow a wild skunk all night long or too closely. I like to drink my water cold from the refrigerator too much to go that skunk’s way in the universe. But what if we go a little too far with the amber lights and the cars? A little more wildness might be a good thing.

Bench note

The fountain is burbling.

I am thinking immaterial thoughts.

Without you, my joy remains intangible.

And so I have left unspoken words

unattached to the underside of this 

park bench -

just in case you sit here one day

and the fountain is burbling.

More than a chance of rain

I was going to mow my lawn this morning. The grass was green and getting tall. And then it began to rain. A good soaker with occasional thunder.

There were a few dishes next to the sink to do. More in the drying rack from last night to put away.

Instead, I took a black and white umbrella from the back porch, and stepped out into the rain in my bare feet. My pant legs would get wet, but what did I care about that? The grass was green and wet. The water was warm, rushing over my toes in the gutter as I crossed 15^th street. Jogging across the football field at Central Middle School was like splashing my white bare feet across a well-soaked dark green sponge. I nearly had the world to myself.

But then I encountered one other person as I walked. She was twisting a shirt or a towel or something to squeeze the rainwater out of it as she stood on the sidewalk near Central in the pouring rain. A  bicycle, a stuffed day pack, and a small wet dog were near her bare feet.

I said something about the weather. She said something about not wishing for things you didn’t want to get – she had been hot and smelly just yesterday. Today she was getting a shower.

I suppose that I could jump to a conclusion, here. I mean, just around the corner, there was enough space by the front doors of the school for her to get a little shelter. Or a few blocks over at Dillons, there was an overhang where she could get out of the rain. Even a public restroom inside.

But maybe she wouldn’t want to leave her dog outside alone. She told me he was eight years old as I crouched under my umbrella to scratch his wet back. So he would always just be a little dog. Or maybe, as the rain came raining down, for this woman standing in the rain – not too old, not too young - it made the most sense for her just to wait for the rain to stop.

I asked her somewhat euphemistically if she was travelling. She looked me with her wet face and dark eyes and said that she was taking a walk.

We exchanged a few words and a look or two. She said something about forty days. I said ‘take care.’ I walked away from the woman and her dog in the rain.

I don’t think that my words were enough, but I suppose we would have needed to know each other quite a bit better for either of us to do much more. We were strangers meeting on a corner in the middle of a rainy summer morning.

But, still, her feet were bare like mine. We were walking. I did have an umbrella and still my pants were half soaked. I put on a dry pair when I got home.

**

It’s an hour later and I’ve been making some notes on my laptop. It’s still sprinkling outside and it looks like more rain to come. I suppose I’ll put away yesterday’s dishes. Maybe tomorrow I’ll mow the lawn. With all of the rain we’ve been having, the grass is green and getting taller.

Happy birthday to me

Yesterday evening, you and I ate out at Mexquizito,

we shared a plate of nachos,

bowls of red chili sauce and green tomatillo sauce on the side.

And you shared some of your shrimp in creamy poblano sauce with me

and I shared with you some of my birria,

the pork stewed to succulent perfection in chilies and spices and such.

And then in the middle of the night

I turned sixty and by morning

it had started to snow.

But then you made French toast and bacon,

the maple syrup so sweet from a tree.

And then the sun came out

and the snow melted away.

Who am I?

And how did I get such a big nose?

And what will we eat for supper tonight?

If I live to be a hundred,

I’ll have German chocolate cake

and a piece of coconut cream pie on the same plate.

And if I don’t make it that far,

I’ll have a red Thai curry and sticky rice with mango.

And I’ll still probably have pie or a chocolate chip cookie.

And you’ll come a waltzing Matilda with me.