.

MEANING

Without a cup of Sleepy Time Tea there would be no Bank of America, no full moon. A forest of sky scraper songs would wither. The fly on the ceiling would not have gotten Twinkie's attention.

Earlier there had been something in the corner, quite invisible, on the closet door. Then something inside the closet. Sliding open the door we discover nothing. But closing it makes no difference – still in there, the ghost of pandemics past.

When there's no way to say it, that's a good time to write. Something will drift in. After all the trivia of the day have settled to the bottom, the water clears.

This morning during a break in the weather (“when we return”), my two young Juncos flew in. How did they know? After they got here, I started setting their walnuts out. They hopped onto the fence a few inches away, chirped happily, and waited as I broke the halves into bits. It's good to have friends.

Earlier there had been this image, like nothing I've ever seen, flashing in from obviously elsewhere – a huge machine with flues, tubes curving round like a brewery gone mad, sitting squat on the floor in a tug boat space not unlike the Moffett blimp hanger, shiny, in shades of green and purple, breathing slightly, perhaps it had taken psilocybin. Then gone. Some timeless instant that never was.

You should have this vision. Totally impressive, expressing what?

Taking a wild guess, the only sort possible, I will call it an abstract version of the California Cornucopia, standing in as a whole for the entire nation. Or, by an extension some might dispute, the entire world.

No accounting for visions.

In no particular (order – a further abstraction of time) comes a clear recollection of my graduation day at Montezuma, after the ceremonies were done. It stands out in stark relief. On that day I climbed White Rock for one last look. I felt in my heart not our studies and games so much as being alone in the forest, that living solitude of not just in it, but being it. And sadly knowing that going down Bear Creek Road into the valley would be my descent into hell.

Hell is being sucked into the cornucopia of consumption. It envelops with subtle fingers. Pleasures far too extravagant. Knowledge commodified in books. An extension of games of chance transmogrified on green felt tables where the double 00 means profits.

One must not succumb to any fears of scarcity. Just create a need and fill it with something addictive. The purpose of money is getting more, no matter what the cost.

“Profit is our most important product.”

Howard Deighton's aphorism machine was a large revolving metal cylinder punctuated with small barbs, a porcupine with a crew cut. I wondered how anyone could have made such a thing. A sheet metal chute hovered over it. The drum whirred and rumbled while odd blocks and pieces of Styrofoam got tossed down the chute. The contraption reminded me of the Davey Tree chipper, small pieces spewed out a spout to be collected in a bin.

Whimsies were cleverly produced on a metal table with a drill sticking up, running backwards. A template placed over a sheet of Styrofoam guided the operator in making say, a Christmas wreath, a bell, a toy dog. One could be finished in less than a minute, the sheet and template lifted up together, and the debris swept off with a brush, providing Whimsie waste, also fed into the rumbling drum. The flurry that flew out the spout was later gathered out of the bin, packaged in plastic bags to be sold as snow.

My first job, Styrofoam Whimsies. A snow job.

and so the accidents of time

having corrected themselves in the present

come to resemble portals of infinity

going poof!

who could not love the ability of words

measured for yet another suit

to fit the occasion

lifeless until the abstract

alone on its own, riffling in solitude

finds a friend unexpectedly in a squirrel

no squirrel can spell

or in the company of two young Junco birds who bonded

over cookie crumbs

meeting this huge human again

in the blossoming of spring