Issue 4.10

If A Be True My essential and accidental properties get together at a coffee shop on Round Street, where I sip as blend of java from the Kona Coast while reading a book on “last things.” Nietzsche proselytized that everything that happens is part of an endlessly repeating cycle. And I thought I was moving forward. The wheatfield looks like a half million arrows fired into the earth from somewhere in heaven. Now where did I put my bow. There is only one of each letter in the alphabet. Yet some are used more than others. A man cannot live by life alone. If it’s invented, other things will cease to exist. Like the letter S which, when doubled, condemns Z to the trash bin of Russian literature. On Round Street, my radical and conservative, female and masculine, affection and derision… build on the theory of the indicative conditional. Damn fine coffee though.

On Haggis What others eat, I do not care, yet spare me this foul Scottish fare— I'm sure a shepherd's life is tough, but who would *choose* such nasty stuff? I'm less repulsed by ghouls and gorgons than by ovened ovine organs. Devoted vegetarian, I shun all kinds of carrion and pity every carnivore who's had a haggis heretofore. The recipe is not unlawful; still, that dish is bloody offal!

The Ritual We recited the names of highways, roads, streets, lakes. We noticed the moon in the morning sky, the tunnel of maples, oaks, birch, cattails just beyond the ditch. We watched for hawks perched on electrical lines, a squirrel’s drey in the top branches, the osprey on its nest built on a utility pole in the clearing by the racetrack. We counted roadkill, mailboxes, cars pulling boats. We clapped at passing police cars, an ambulance— lights flashing, siren sounding. We looked for the blue jay painted on the water tower at the edge of town. We yelled “slug bug” at any Volkswagen, hollered at any yellow car. We sang along to most any song— even if we didn’t know the words. We did this every day— all the way to school and back until it stopped.

Town Park, Veteran's Day Snow beards stones on the trail while new frost and weak light stain the glass of yesterday's bootprints. A pair of grebes speck the still navy. At the overlook, sky of milk and black tea serves an empty bench. A rifle reports; an airplane slides between atmospheres. The next blue swatch reads from the trunk of a toppled elm, its crown still burning as its roots kick back the foliage.

In a Dark Time Basswood leaves fall in the golden afternoon, covering the road to the lake. Maple leaves follow— puddles of red, yellow, brown. Pine needles scatter along little-used paths, narrow rustic roads. Mushroom villages rise between fallen branches and old stumps. Sunlight slips through bare limbs. Winter waits beyond the blue, though nothing here looks like a warning.