The refrigerator gurgles and hums, the soft vibrato of the compressor like a brook on rocks; somewhere upstairs a neighbor runs their kitchen tap and the water rains down the building’s pipes, and I hear the gentle rumble of bare feet on wood floors; the hard disc of my laptop whirs as it awakens like a bird … More Small stone, Vol. 2, #23
Cold like a bullet, it rolls between my tongue and the roof of my mouth, that tiny jagged crown where the stem once was pressing a rough circle into my palate. It is so ripely firm it will not burst until I break it with my teeth. Then, oh! the tang and natural sugars, that succulent … More Small stone, Vol. 2, #22
Dappled light, breeze through the parted lips of the driver’s window, soft voice of NPR whispering on the radio. Midday lullaby.
Flag-themed fruit breakfast, bald eagle through a waterfall, grilled cheese and lemonade for lunch. Frisbee in the park surrounded by bikinied sunbathers and stocky, muscle-flexing softball players. A cramped bus ride, fireworks over the river downtown, freaks and drunks and street-preachers at the bus stop, tired crabby Americans all the way home. Exactly as it … More Small stone, Vol. 2, #20
Wind in the pines, the earthy scent of someone’s organic wheat bread overlaying the wash of rose petals and loose soil. Children giggling, a Korean woman translating a botanical label for her elderly mother, two French women remarking on the moss climbing the trunks and the sift of light through the branches, a tourist laughing … More Small stone, Vol. 2, #19
In the park, at a picnic table, dusk settling in, corduroy blazer on, laptop open, chin on fist. I feel like such a writer, and such a poseur.
A long, long silence. Open the phone, close it. Check the ringer. Longer silence still. All this patience, all this waiting: such an exercise. Then, late in the evening with a plane passing overhead in the twilight, my wife calls to tell me she has arrived safe in the US. So close to home.
Of all the blessings I have received today, this cat in my lap is the most rewarding.
No one is quite sure which is the greater mystery: why the devil beats his wife, or why we all enjoy it so much when he does. (Today, I walked in a sunshower.)
The aroma of a good, full-bodied dark-roast coffee is, itself, enough to wake the mind.
