SAGE FLAT

How closely the world fits. When I come to sit here by my cedar-round table, and when the cup of green tea appears, Mr. Finch knows that next some cookie crumbs will appear on his special wooden dish, made from part of a shingle. It's how the universe works.

But sometimes not. Sometimes in the kitchen there's a fresh batch that has to cool, and when he lands on his dish – it's empty – he flies over and bumps my leg. He'll have to wait a bit while I slurp some ramen noodles.

Our universe was windy and much colder than normal that day.. Today it's much hotter than normal, in the nineties. What a difference a couple of days make! I open the Kindle and check for mail. One message is from Nextdoor, about a deer within the boundaries of Sage apartments. The world is getting closer. What to do?

The Nextdoor poster describes her attempts at getting some aid for the deer, which is frightened, and there are curious kids about. She tries six possible agencies, starting with Silicon Valley Animal Care and on through to the Sheriff’s office. Some are closed, or it's not their turf, until finally the Native Animal Rescue deer hotline. She reaches someone -- “. . .finally reached someone who asked me if I could just leave the gate open for the deer to walk out by itself!”

The boundary of our fence is a useful perch. Mr. Finch is waiting. Within this compass, an approximate word, substance and boundaries are interchangeable with an incredible reality where time is forgotten. Time is a fiction. We are not counting.

I reply:

Leave the gate open and the deer goes away? Back to where it came from? Forest fires, humans migrating to settle in places as yet still green, the situation includes all of us. We humans do not live on another planet. How do you like today's weather? And do you think we have nothing to do with it?

Every aspect and level, all seen at once, all heard at once, felt, tasted, imagined and unimagined, allowed in silence and the sharp beak needle cheep of this visiting hummingbird – all vie with sun and darkness in primal rhythm, the calm beneath eddies and swirls, knowing it's not enough yet endless. A frightened deer in our midst.

We have surrounded ourselves with too many of us, technological, busy with our dailyness, the task force built and accumulated through centuries of effort.

A moment of prestidigitation. The setting sun is skimming Mr. Finch's cookie crumbs.