old friend. so good to sit across from you and watch your face change. light, expression, embodiment. beautiful. familiar and akin to something i see in myself, the socio-genetic resistance to time. resilience. survival. like two of the last speakers of some tribal language atrophied by what the children call progress. this is what i can say to you because you will understand me. we have an understanding. and for me that is beyond the pale of my hermetrix existence, keeping to my hedge and my hounds, my garden and my grotto the white bed in which i dream the room in which i write. but sweet welcome, sister, and with the hours allowed us well reconnect weave the threads together exchange confidence and laugh.



the breeze from the east moves across the meadow august sun on tall grass queen anne chicory acorn walnut hickory heavy on the branch. going for eggs to the mennonites theyre running a blood drive. the vfd deserted, the bosslady a heavyset madam of a certain age barking into a phone in front of the stage fan im the only one, the man behind the folding table remembered my name from that one afternoon in the copy room. the nurse and i discuss the definition of country music, the warped tour and the desire for white people to suffer vicariously through rap. "i told my daughter when she started bringing that stuff home i said, girl, you got on jimmy choos and a coach bag. theres just no way." another woman comes over to tell me she had dinner with the headliner of a show we both happened to attend recently because her father and the star were old surf buddies. i told her he seemed like a groovy cat. "you did not just say that," the nurse says. were laughing and chatting and all the while my blood ("my its bright," the nurse says)is being channeled into a bag to be saved to save a life someday, or so im led to believe. juice and cookies and the men and i discuss food fixation and mall aversion and im back on the street headed for eggs.



the heart is a muscle, the spirit a fire.



she gifted me with woolens nectar and a flower for my arm. she left poetry on the bathroom wall, she took seeds to say my friend grew these and now im growing them. she suggested ducks for the bugs and she and the cowboy discussed hen truck chickens and why the greeks kill your dog. i didnt feel like fleeing from you i was nervous awkward full of feeling but i didnt run i sat and smiled and tried to say something that sounded like something that meant something. and you gave me that spacetime to say what i could manage to say. an hourglass on the table and a lifetime behind.



you didnt ask but i told you anyway what i thought the dream meant. cancer and a plant are both alive but in different ways, approached accordingly. is it cancer or a plant? what it is to us defines how we deal with it. f**k is okay, you said. c**k is not. not if you want to get read. all i had to offer was ripe green honeydew and unsweetened tea with an ant in it. you shared with me again and again. how absolutely rare that is for me. thank you.



and a belated happy happy to a favorite storyteller

37 of 365:

1. s(d)g
2. mod podge
3. egg fruit and vegetable stands
4. i can give blood
5. the second honeymoon
6. she said, "ive talked to people successfully married a long time and they say
things like, 'there were some bad years'"
7. books and the time to read them.
8. deadwood
9. walks
10. my home

and this one just makes me so damn happy. the soundtrack of my days...my brain on perpetual hold...