Evening: Andrus Island

I saw a bird fly sideways as I turned northward into the park.  I don’t know what kind of bird.  It did not so much fight the wind as borrow its energy, rising, lifting, banking just before the roof of the Marina.  

Nancy who lives in the Popeye houseboat trudged up the hill. I hit the automatic window and called to her.  We exchanged a few words before she turned to cross the road.  As I drove past the kiosk, I waved to the girls playing a make-shift game of tennis under the big tent.  I heard one of them call my name.

The wind carried me as far as it had carried that bird, halfway around the meadow.  I parked and let the engine settle.  Overhead, soft clouds borne on that same glorious air crossed the tenderness of the afternoon sky.

Later, I sat eating leftovers augmented with the last of the Portabella mushroom sauteed in rich butter.  I spare myself the anguish of eating one-hundred percent plant-based.  Butter and eggs; all that stands between me and the more noble vegans.  If foregoing either of those would assure my place in heaven, I’d take my chances.

Now the wind which propelled the bird, the clouds, and the rug on my front porch buffets the house as I sit and write.  The Delta wind calls itself a character in this lively play, the third act of my adventure .  I wait for the lilt of its steady voice, reciting the next line, my cue to enter, stage left.

It’s the ninth day of the sixty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

 

 

Evening: New York — By Sara Teasdale

Blue dust of evening over my city,
Over the ocean of roofs and the tall towers
Where the window-lights, myriads and myriads,
Bloom from the walls like climbing flowers.

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