12.28.22

i am once again not on a train, just enjoying the morning before things happen. i should be showering and hustling out the door to acquire a carrot cake, but absentminded, bedheaded processions past one's christmas tree are the royal icing between christmas and new year's, and i respect that. a couple of weeks ago the tree guy up on houston explained to me how the water additive he threw in with our noble fir was safe for pets because it turns into gelatinous little beads in the stand, which is a wild way of telling someone you've never met a companion animal. the cats bark for wet food, a piledriver whacks out matins on the east river, i'll probably play trombone champ "take on me" as i get ready. there are between two and four spiders living inside the average trombone.

ENCOUNTER

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not of sorrow, but in wonder.

(czeslaw milosz, 1936)