IT'S LATE BUT LET ME WRITE
The Carolina Parakeet is long ago extinct, just
like the passenger pigeon, which once coated
America's skies with glee. A lot of what I love
is gone. My friend has the shakes, another has
constant headaches and a tumor. I don't know
what to do : I hear all this but nothing comes
knocking. Things get stored in the garage, and
other things seem given away. There's an
entourage, and many of them have new cars.
-
Usually it was on Saturday mornings when the
Jehovah's would come to call. When I was around,
they'd just pass by. When I was not home, they'd stop
to talk and say I scared them off. Down the street,
at the corner, was their temple and this street was their
training strip for new recruits - to go walk and set out
their spiel, hand out Watchtowers, go on about their
absolute and freakish glimmerings of their own eternity.
Dressed like bankers and business-people. Why would
they even bother with that? I hear all this but nothing
comes knocking. I must have scared them off. Yes.
-
Tess was the farmer's daughter. When I first met her,
she was clean as a hound's tooth - but I later learned
of all her hidden secrets. For hours in the hayloft, we'd
talk and go on, stay at it, never finish. It was a nearly
wonderful thing, for a long time too. Two years, I'd bet,
well, two Summers anyway. She was two years younger
than me, but she was only a kid. Enough of that.
-
There's always a mathematics hidden in the nighttime sky:
we fumble for ages over what it is - does the arc of a comet
reflect some cosmic turn, an equivalent number that can keep
the universe running? Does it all need to stay in tune? Does
this equation always work? Are we all okay? Never any
answer - I must have scared them off.
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