Unseasonal warmth. Smoke from nearby fires reminiscent of benzoin, frankincense and myrrh. It will be Christmas soon and my heart has begun to remember joy, even in its alien casing, even in its bloody crust crumbling.
Rain passes, leaving matted grass where little floods ran. I trudge slowly past the summer chicken coop, reflecting as always on the many deaths in which I have had a hand, a hard one. You didn't used to see cardinals this far north, fifty or sixty years ago, and there are other changes coming too. A music stand which doubles as an easel.
Hayloft visits that end up sexual. Chrisoula and I walk down Main Street talking about our holiday "budget." A dozen or so turtles circle in the distance, obeying the dictates of the agentic cephalapod who took over for Jesus in late August (Jesus' secretary, says Fionnghuala). Hemlocks quiver in morning breezes, the last of the storm clouds race away east, and we are left with December only mildly threatening. That mandolin won't play itself, son.
I remember as a child peeling threads of birch bark off and setting the curly scrolls in the brook, sure I was communicating with something beautiful and full of love. We kept a secret list of good things I did, hidden under the stairs in the basement, which somehow only shamed me further. Lake Champlain remains a comfort, though at the time it was a complex relationship. One sits on the public stairs of this or that building and works on poems, especially when staying in their little one-room sublet makes them feel insane. I remember other things as well.
Can't sing but love singing means you can sing, you just need a better teacher, or any teacher at all. She snuggles me while I stir the coffee, asks if I want to run away for a month and I say yes because I know that's the answer she wants to hear. You pull out the Christmas ornaments, you do what do you with the Christmas ornaments.
In a text - this text say - the divided subject confirms its generative split yet also collapses in on itself.
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