Observation - August 1st, 2016, Monday

Observation

It is 4:00 am and dark outside.

The streets are quiet.

My cat is sleeping nearby on her blanket, atop the book case. My gal, in the bed behind the closed door.

It is warm. The air is heavy in the house.

I am listening to the news, the voices are muffled over the low pitched noise of the humming fan, on the end table by my desk.

The coffee maker beeps, beeps, beeps…it is telling me that the warming plate below the pot is about to switch off.

I do not care for the sound of its alarms.

Observation - July 1st, 2016, Friday

Observation

I can hear the wet-clinging strokes of the paint roller.

The back and forth, the up down; I can hear the spreading of the new white, covering the old white, yellowed with age.

She is painting the bedroom, while I listen to news, and write, and prepare for work.

My cat is watching the city from atop the couch; in the picture window.

Sunlight brushes the lilies in the boulevard.

A cool wind is blowing through the peonies, the dark green leaves are just bushes now; having dropped the soft petals, from their pendulous flowers.

Observation - June 1st, Wednesday, 2016

Observation

The sun has come up.

She is sleeping. Her head on the pillow; a soft copper cloud.

There are birds singing in the morning light, in hushed tones; a whisper of whistles.

The rabbits are gathered on the lawn, pushing their noses through the Creeping Charlie.

Foraging, at the dawn; the metal scrappers push carts down the alley, in a jangle and clattering song.

May 1st, 2016, Sunday - Observation

It is finally warm.

My windows are open, my cat is basking in the sun.

The sound of a chainsaw intermittently buzzing comes into the house.

It is May Day and I skipped the parade.

My neighbors are outside cleaning.

I am inside thinking of a nap, like my cat in the sun.

April 1st, 2016, Friday - Observation

The April sun streams

Today is a day of fools

And birds clamoring

Gravity bends sunlight

Striking soft, the rounded world

It is cool outside

Kitty is sleeping

Twitching, dreaming of bird friends

Feathered play and bones

Withered apples fall

Dark red fruit cast to the ground

As small as cherries

March 1st, 2016, Tuesday - Observation

Observation

The snow is mostly gone.

The sky was lighting at six in the morning; when I left for work.

There was a fresh dust of white on the ground, that disappeared in the first few hours of morning.

The green is coming to my lawn, pushing past the pale yellow blades, the gray and brown remnants of leaves, the twigs fallen from the apple tree.

My cat followed the white tail of rabbit with her eyes; as she rested on the couch, by the window bay, lucid, and dreaming of the hunt.

It is election day in Minnesota, caucus day, and there is a pensive energy in the air.

I am for Hillary, but I think most of my town is for Bernie.

I think Minnesota will go hard left as well.

My cat does not care, she wants to share my chicken.

February 1st, 2016, Monday

It is dark outside, and I am thinking.

The grain of wood beneath the palms of my hands is comforting. They rest on the edge of my desk as my fingers are arched upward and hover the keys of the key board, fingertips intermittently striking downward as I compose those thoughts.

I am writing.

I am writing about a moment in time.

It is morning, 5:45.

I have been awake for hours.

It is dark outside.

I sweetened my coffee with brown sugar.

I am preparing to leave for work, not actually preparing, but mentally. Soon I will get up from this chair, get dressed and go, but that is not this moment.

In this moment I am thinking.

Awake, and the world is turning on its axis…as usual.

January 19th

The news is coming out of the television-background noise-chatter.

Presidential politics, and a new relationship with Iran, ancient Persia…warm coffee on my desk in a tall, yellow painted mug. My gray and white, tawny, tabby cat is watching me, as she usually does this time of day; 4:00 am, when I am sitting at my desk; writing. I lean back in my chair, and reach for my hoodie. It is chilly in the room, and I need an extra layer. As the radiators come to life, hissing and spitting steam. The house had just hit the low point in the heating cycle. It is below zero in the January morning. The thermostat told the furnace to turn to turn on; such small devices, with so few moving parts, that you can hardly call them machines. They sense the temperature, and trigger a flow of electrons along a thin copper wire, sending them down into into the basement, to the gas main, where the flow of gas is increased in the giant, asbestos covered octopus. The flame comes to life and the water in the boiler-boils, steam rises up through expanding clanking pipes, whistling through the valves.

Kitty is always interested in the sound of the house warming up. She turns away from me.