A squall of crows is heading somewhere, their doppler cries receding. Sunlit bright air scintillates. And it's already party time for people waiting on dock, laughing.

Why blow the whistle when the he knows they're tone deaf anyhow? A steamboat whistle blows like a pall of mourners, squashing tones. He steers past neglected shoals, fathoms hidden changes, realizing that the faithful don't hear what they don't want to, don't see what's right there. A cement truck that eventually drives away, peanut butter on the window sill, wild and furious weather.

From his bridge to nowhere, the captain sighs and signals, Full Speed Ahead.

Nudging past scientific sounding scintillations, the doppler trail condenses. If this were raised like a bucket of bricks to make clouds, they would be too heavy. No one in their right mind would consider it.

A good time to start, then, is when the mind is out of town. Any local gossip will be an exaggerated rumor. Plus these bricks are used, evidently, with concrete and bits of damp sand clinging. Not just inexpensive but, having abandoned former uses, they are scot-free. Thus anyone can do this.

Anyone, however, might be too busy, perhaps ironing out wrinkles in a work shirt, negotiating canyons between tall buildings, or facing the day with a cup of coffee, efforts of staying alive.

Or, if one wants . . .

Here are Frankie and Twinkie, asleep on their blanket. Not a vortex, we might all agree. The word 'mystery' is a rain bucket. Raindrops down the gutter will soon be nonsense, but until clouds are seen there is no hint. Only the rhythm of the day brings the next beat, dangling, out the back pocket of a passing musician, and like a slingshot – splat!

Ya! Heaven is laid bare. Electricity is in the air. Birds twitter, but what's everywhere has no destination. A puddle forms. A frog sings, jumping in, but splat?

That would ruin a perfectly good zen story. Or as rumors go, it would be a crock of bricks. Slight changes passed on, like too many cooks, spoil the stew. Rather, it's the backbeat that swings the gateless gate on rusty hinges.

Frankie would purr to that.

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