#tarandfeathers

Slept with the windows open last night, curtain softly billowing.  It felt like beach weather minus the salty air....

Awoke to a distant train rollin’ beneath a familiar wooden bridge.  I like to stop and look at the stars there whenever I drive over it at night, smelling the residual soot from those metallic beasts which carry coal and cargo, like ancient dragons rumbling through the forests out of sight.  

In the daytime the thick black tar along the bridge bolts sparkles, its dripping essence frozen in place with dust and the winds’ contents over time which have become caked there as well, like the rust and calcification of old memories, cherished and rigid. 

In this sentimental fashion, I have gazed upward there since I was seventeen.  It is one of my only rituals, I realize.  I’ve loved stopping on that train bridge for moments in passing, of which most days have found me passing that same spot, which has comprised half my life... I suppose it’s my longest relationship.  

It strikes me that it’s so much easier to feel present in a landscape than with people, as we humans are always changing and tend to be shiftier...  And so too does the landscape change, over time, but we seem to see it so transiently (which is ironic, because I hate to be treated that way by people).

This morning is overcast with foreboding thunder -- it will be the first rainfall of spring.  The sky is a grayish periwinkle blue and the birds are serenading, cooing & squawking for mates amidst fresh buds, which are patiently swelling in contrast, their pollen tidily contained.  Well, for the time being, anyway...

A lone vulture rides the air tides above the South-facing upper deck, not circling, just enjoying...  That is my favorite action verb, I’ve decided.  ~ The conscious act of enjoying.  Those momentary splendors which comprise so much grace and joy than any anticipation for a given event could ever encapsulate.  ~  I watch him until he flies out of sight, enjoying him with my humble, flightless jealousy.  It uplifts me paradoxically.