July 6, 2014

Walked through the blazing afternoon light as slowly as I could. It was cool on the side of me that faced away from the sun, stinging, blazing on the lighted side, like a tiny Mercury. I was amazed by the stillness–an impression not modified by the fact that nothing was still. A blue jay flew past me, wingtip almost touching my hair, on his way to a drink in the birdbath. The just-opened tiger lilies vibrated orange against the pure blue of the sky– pure, pure blue, an otherworldly purity. Bees swept low the grass. I went still, stillness contemplating stillness. I don’t remember what finally made me move.

Lawrence rode by on his bike. He praised my house. I think people expect me to live in a basement with things tossed about.

In the evening came the fireworks we had expected the night before. It was as if my trees were afire. Half moon to the west. I liked them, the fireworks, but the cats didn’t like them so much. I remembered the East Drive-In in Akron on the 4th of July. There was always an on-the-ground feature of a burning American flag at the end, and all the cars would honk their horns.

This morning at dawn I stood in the street and listened to the mockingbirds volley and thunder in my neighbor’s half dead cherry tree. Were my soul pure, I would have thought the tree was a god and the birds were its voice.

My old elementary school crush facebooks me about my being so humorous, and how she always enjoyed my sense of humor.