One leaf among thousands, it is conspicuous only at death. Parchment brown and brittle, it falls to the ground when touched.
Jul 102011
Jul 092011
A patio chair, an unexpected oasis in the concrete desert. An ant, a veteran nomad, takes refuge in its L-shaped shadow, waits until dark to travel.
Jul 082011
Awkward, imposing, homely, too big for its surroundings, won’t be told where not to go.
Exuberantly climbs abelia as if it were a playground gym, all the way to the top, leaps fearlessly for an overhanging branch. Wraps tiny arms around whatever stays close and still, holds on for dear life.
Leaves, serrated like a kitchen knife, yearning only for the sun, so much like a human heart.
Jul 072011
Music of bagpipes floats the waves of wind and sound across the field behind the house, into my windows, closed and curtained against the summer. My jaded dogs yawn, ignore my amazement, as if a dozen more miracles are sure to occur before bedtime.
Jul 062011
In a tree across a busy street a dove makes a four-note call, “Where are you now? Where are you now?” Cicadas hum and buzz louder than the cars. A dove of another variety cries, “Here, brother. Here, brother.”
Jul 052011
Two women sit across a small table, phones before their faces like shields between them. One must check for messages. The other needs to make a quick call.
Their meals arrive and one says, “I have few regrets”, then speaks the words “grandmother” and “children”. She says her daughter feels a sense of entitlement and that everything has come too easy. She reaches out for someone who’s not there.
Jul 042011
Yellow pickup truck screams to be noticed by my eyes.
A yellow stripe circles the top of the building across the street. Yellow letters above every storefront, yellow lines in the parking lot. Yellow flowers in the flowerbeds.
Once observed, they appear everywhere.
Jul 032011
The wind moves the crape myrtles to weave like hula dancers, arms rising and falling in rhythm with a faraway ocean. They cast their shadows against this umbrella, and above it white clouds form a map of imaginary continents. They drift apart and collide, every second creating and destroying entire geographies of shorelines, bays, straits and peninsulas.
The shadow of a mockingbird draws a line across the lawn.
Jul 022011
The ceiling fan taps a military beat for the army of traffic outside our window.
Jul 012011
Four black cloudlets perforate the line between daylight and dark, making a slow conga toward the exit of the night.