Wash in the Hood

Taken in the wash.  In my neighborhood.  Except the agave--that's in my yard.

Home sick.

I have a hard time resting, even when I really need to.  But I stayed home sick today with a cold, and tried not to feel guilty for not going to work.  It was the perfect sort of day to be at home on the couch watching Twin Peaks: rainy and dark and full of magic, as days like that often are--especially in these parts, where they are seldom.

I stood in the kitchen earlier looking out at the strange unnamed tree in our backyard that has shed most of its leaves.  Through its branches the sun was a white orb in the mist.  It was so silent I felt like the only person on earth.  I felt the mystery and the strangeness of everything; and I understood that I understand nothing.

Now I'm reading W.S. Merwin poems in the half-light.  There are quail calling from the little ravine across the street.  And that other bird I haven't been able to identify. 

Soon I won't be able to see.

Unknown Bird

Out of the dry days
through the dusty leaves
far across the valley
those few notes never
heard here before

one fluted phrase
floating over its
wandering secret
all at once wells up
somewhere else

and is gone before it
goes fallen into
its own echo leaving
a hollow through the air
that is dry as before

where is it from
hardly anyone
seems to have noticed it
so far but who now
would have been listening

it is not native here
that may be the one
thing we are sure of
it came from somewhere
else perhaps alone

so keeps on calling for
no one who is here
hoping to be heard
by another of its own
unlikely origin

trying once more the same few
notes that began the song
of an oriole last heard
years ago in another
existence there

it goes again tell
no one it is here
foreign as we are
who are filling the days
with a sound of our own

--W.S. Merwin