Winter Mornings, Summer Afternoons

It is getting colder. I can tell by feeling Too Li’s ears. Like the elephant, her large ears dissipate excess heat. If there isn’t enough heat in the environment, her ears get cold. I can also tell by what I wear. Three days ago I dug out my winter beret, the warm, wooly cover that acts as the full head of hair which I ain’t got. No more t-shirts in the morning; no more sandals without socks. It’s up to the attic to get the sweaters and jackets, soon.
Still, the worst of Fall has yet to drop on us. We get Indian Summers, often. It is a welcome segue, a slow letting down, instead of a sudden drop into the freeze. This time is for getting ready.
I have a long list of to-do’s to prepare for winter. At the top of the list: enjoy the Fall. Makes sense and I try and I know that the true cricket fiddles well into the night.
On the ground, under the tree, a carpet of glowing apples lies waiting. A glass of juice, held in crisp skin, patiently waiting liberation by bite; my appetite or the tender milking of the ground, the roots and their allies. Still the leaves cling to sturdy branches, working and waving goodbye. Fading to yellow, then to brown. In January the last apples will hang on bare branches, without tinsel or ropes of light; out in the cold, suspended in time, long after sacrificed noble firs hug garbage cans in back alleys. Then, I will pick the first rose of the year, from tough bushes on the corner, in front of the Rose Man’s house. Fighting roses that never taste fertilizer, nor the gardeners clip; that just keep pushing delicate colors into the cold, gray air.

Dogs Dream

Everybody agrees that my dog has been good for me. I know that, I know. I have been influenced by a nose oriented, four-legged and annoying barker. Too Li has personality, roughly speaking. Tendencies and inclinations.
Recently, I got my computer fixed. Ouch, not the kind of fixed that in the canine context we speak of. Rather, I met a compu-wizard, who kindly gave the corpse a breath of life and once again, I am able to waste enormous amounts of time doing basically nothing, which I do well, with or without a computer. Swinging right into the time toilet, Too Li checks on me, sitting in my shop, reading paranoid pages on arcane web sites. Without speaking or judgment, she simply looks at me funny-like and I remember that we were supposed to go waste time at the 'cafe' or wherever, just a minute while I check the dow-jones average and what the hell is going on in Uzbekistan?
I love my dog, it is true. It has been a learning experience and I am influenced as is the earth when the apple falls from the tree, both approach each other and meet, crushing a blade or two of grass. Though the apple does nearly all the traveling or coming hither, Too Li has also done the majority of the obvious journeying. None the less, the boundaries of master and servant are lurky, at best murky, and a lot has been written about the psychology of leadership and following.
For one thing, Too Li takes her damn time. I grumbly wait, as her sniffing and nosing about interferes with my ideas of proper time wastage. I like to think that I am understanding and that since I no longer have a position of importance in the community (once I worked at a store, dusting furniture!), I can indulge her need to explore. I well understand that dogs live next to their noses and that it is a form of intelligence we Hummins haint got, so much; or lost. However, at times the dwaddling over poop piles gets on my nerves. "Can't you just read the headlines, Too Li, why do you have to sniff out the fine print, too?"
The other day I was accosted by an animal rights person for mistreating Too Li. I am still incensed over the incident. I have been chewing and thinking and reliving what I would have liked to have said to her. At the time, I did real good just keeping my mouth shut. It happened when I was at the store, buying a beer to cap off the day, as I am inclined to do, when I find money in my pocket. I had placed Too Li on top of the last grocery cart in the line of corraled carts and in I went to retrieve a bottle of cheap, yet potent, beer. Buck and a half later, I joyfully emerged from the store to find somebody, cell phone in hand, pondering the woefull looking, cute dog; abandoned orphan and starving, there, for the world to see. She launched into a similar opening as I, above, under 'dogs dream'. Then into the prosecution and the judgement: get a blanket for the poor dear to sit on while waiting for the truant to emerge from the grocery store. A blanket, so she wouldn't be so uncomfortable.
I was flabbergasted, speechless and chewing on my tongue all at the same time.
We live in a country that has legalized torture, I wish I had said to her. Do you know how many species we are losing every day? It is your lifestyle, Lady, that contributes to their 'discomfort'. Finally, fuck off. I wish I had said that, too.
But that is not what I wanted to write about. It is just that it still hangs in my mental space, like a piniata that needs a stiff whack or seven.

Too Li sleeps a lot. She has a great off switch. If stuff isn't happening, she goes into stand-by mode within a couple of minutes. Down and out, quick. It was from her that I remembered what I learned in Mexico: napping is civilized. I had forgotten and let the rush-rush overcome me.
The other thing, more difficult, is being-essence. Kee-rist that is a tough one. Easy for her, she is honest, to the bone. I am not. Not that I don't want to, but so much lies piled up in the psyche; fear and regrets. Which reminds me of the incident with the animal discomfort Lady, once again. Well, never mind.
Dogs dream. I know they do. They dream of the wild life; of chasing rabbits and sniffing the far-away land. Dogs dream. I know they do. Too Li is curled up next to me, on the couch, a black ball of warm and fur and wait. Waiting for the next adventure, for dinner or a bone. No rush, no haste, just so. Day dream, night dream. What is the difference?

Science and Civility have left me

From the distance comes the lonely sound of a train whistle; long and sounding lost, faint as if from a barely remembered dream. It echoes in the yet-dark morning, companion in fading to the night.
The carousel of days spinning. Summer days, fair days; winter wet or white and cold. The seasons turning. A few short years left on the ticket. Every winter the conductor stamps another hole into the now creased and frayed, finger limped card.
I remember it's early crispness. The sharp corners and stout presence in pocket. The wish for more holes. I remember when it had 25. Then I dreamt of immortality; the end of aging.
The promise of science and the rejuvinating pass. Science and civility have left me. I hear the train whistle these restless nights.

The Silence

I see the restaurant fan push dense smoke, a bluegray trail of charred steak, perhaps, over the town. With the channel at my back, looking up at the hill, I imagine that pieces of delicious smells will weave themselves in amongst fir boughs and onto shop roof tops; a thin veneer; a complex mix of car exhaust, perfume and food. Of cardboard shipping boxes and even the purse smell of green bills.
I see the fan, but do not hear it. All around is a whirring. Fan motors, motors and motorcycles. Truck tires and scraping heels of talking people and barking dogs. Crows and seagull cries. All that and yet I hear the silence.
It weaves itself into the coarse fabric of noise, thin spider threads of gold; tenderthin, yet strong. Over and around, through and front, there and hidden. A sheen of silence, a thin veneer, over the busy world.
Somewhere in the forest a leaf drops from tree tops. Slowly tumbling, stalling in free flight; fluttering quietly in the still. The sound is of a funereal song; the parting, a lost goodbye.
That fan turns off and the gold tendrils surge collectively. Weaving and exploring, denser and aware. When night comes, the fabric will have turned to gold, all coarseness covered and infiltrated, saturated with the night-dew of silence. I will be asleep and flowing like the channel flows, steadystrong, even if no one is watching.