Terrified or in Mourning

Afternoon rain, the nineteenth century briefly visiting, percolating in thick blood, dark grounds, your funeral or mine, etc. Profluent green landscapes in which poetic compositions lean to the baroque. Muted barks of distant and thus nameless dogs. In my mind a black bear is always on the move, always drawing closer to my heart's capacity for imagining itself outside itself. There was more space in the world back then, and less to be scared of, and even in winter we were outdoors all the time. After working in the garden almost until noon, we come in and reheat the night before's rice and beans, finding not much to talk about, as if the past month were the very aberration we'd feared all along. The trail past the horse pasture narrows to an uncomfortable degree, raspberry prickers dragging our skin. This quiet is almost ready to give up speech, never mind writing. Faint breezes move tree limbs up and down like men in the 1930s greeting one another after church. Why am I always so surprised to still be here? Here, the house eaves weep see-through tears and all the birds are silent as if terrified or in mourning. Tell me again what your favorite book from childhood was?