By Mary Oliver
I was walking by. He was sitting there.
It was full morning, so the heat was heavy on his sand-colored
head and his webbed feet. I squatted beside him, at the edge
of the path. He didn’t move.
I began to talk. I talked about summer, and about time. The
pleasures of eating, the terrors of the night. About this cup
we call a life. About happiness. And how good it feels, the
heat of the sun between the shoulder blades.
He looked neither up nor down, which didn’t necessarily
mean he was either afraid or asleep. I felt his energy, stored
under his tongue perhaps, and behind his bulging eyes.
I talked about how the world seems to me, five feet tall, the
blue sky all around my head. I said, I wondered how it seemed
to him, down there, intimate with the dust.
He might have been Buddha— did not move, blink, or frown,
not a tear fell from those gold-rimmed eyes as the refined
anguish of language passed over him.
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Paul had a dentist appointment Tuesday morning, so I went over with him to do some shopping while he was being examined. I ended up buying a couple of dresses, plus some necessities at Safeway after traveling (we were almost out of cat treats!). When we got home, I put away some of the vast amount of laundry that's been folded, did some computer work, and eventually took a walk to the beach to see the eagles and the many turtles now emerging in our neighborhood wetlands. I didn't see the whole Orioles-Nationals game but it was very sad for the Os.
My DS9 group was missing several people with family obligations, so we just chatted instead of watching an episode, which was fine because I had plans with Cheryl to watch the first three episodes of Andor's second season, which is excellent, both in terms of the performances and in terms of how real-world and relevant it feels compared to other Star Wars shows. Afterward, Paul and I watched The Wheel of Time episode we had missed, which suffered by comparison. Some photos of flowers and animals from Locust Grove Nature Center on Saturday:
