30 < 9 – 67

over the hot horizon a long mountain makes stone become bumps

25 < 4 – 67

I pour a third mug of coffee. It is

barely warm, now, not anywhere near hot.

But it tastes of power and sweetness, the last

touch of honey clinging to the bitter.

23 < 2 – 67

I slept late this Sunday morning. Deliciously, wondrously, lingeringly, late.

Went to bed around eleven last night, maybe a few minutes before eleven.

Ten thirty-seven and eleven eighteen were the last and the first emails, read and unread, before and after I left this machine behind and wandered down the hall to the back corner of the house, where the master bedroom waited for me, its small bathroom tucked behind its ear like a ranch house accoutrement, a small skull cap on its head, a feather behind its resting, dreaming, night.

.

I have fed the dog her breakfast and made coffee. The bagel has toasted and I can smell its savor in the air, wafting from the kitchen twenty some feet behind, across the open space between the rooms in this magnificent, comfortable, sixty-five year old house.

Here I am, at home, in the morning. Grateful for life and a place to hide away from the cold night, or bear the summer heat now fading into our mild, boring, California climate of autumn.

For whatever reason, I have always prefered and enjoyed autumn. I tell myself perhaps it is the ending of the heat wave that pleases me, but it may be simply that I was born this time of year, seventy-three years ago, and my body remembers, knows the ancient, unconscious pleasure of having survived that mighty trial of labor and delivery.

Never mind that then they cut off my foreskin. No.

.

Those monsters who brought me forward into life and breath and food.

Mmm. Food. Drink. Pour the coffee, Danial.

Pretend you are in Venice. On the loggia. It be much colder there soon.

.

new year in my personal calendar

Today is the last day of the 66^th year of the space age. Tomorrow will be the 12^th day of autumn, or fall, the 4^th day of October, the 20^th day of the Moon, and as it happens, the anniversary of the launch of sputnik one, which occurred 66 years ago in 1957. Sixty-six years having been completed since that historic event, the Earth, or rather humankind, will begin its/our 67^th year of the space age.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !