MOVING ON

Full moon glittering in eyes that bob across the fence. A midnight squirrel? It might have been a cat.

She had cried in the night, too weak to move, next to my pillow. She did not want to leave. Now at the foot of Saint Francis, next to the baby squirrel, Tabitha lies buried. And I do not want even to begin to tell about my sister who passed away last week.

The worst fires in California's history, following on our worst drought, have left us with burning eyes. The toxins of burnt plastic will pollute soon as the rains begin. As long as its called Fake News, and enough people believe that, climate change will get worse. I choose to believe otherwise. And soon the arguments will cease.

The moon doesn't say much, though. As she was dying, with cupped fingers I kept her ears warm, always one of our favorite things. Words don't mean as much as silence. It's keeping the peace. But it's not easy.

There are no replacements. People come and go, and nothing fills what they were. Emptiness. Where did they come from? Where will you and I go? Precious moments, each one of a kind, fleeting away. People, birds, trees. Why list just pleasant things?

Sadness, insane thermonuclear street fighters, the ones who scoff at peace, trained killers, glad perpetuators of hell. Slicers and dicers of the only home we have.

Full moon glittering on the fence, reflected in the bird bath. The clank of tank tracks, bulldozers, lawn mowers on the run, found in the Great Pyramid:

“currently no information about the role of this void”

“a breakthrough for the understanding of Khufu's Pyramid”

A void in the power structure! Muon detection logging gamma rays from space, bureaucracies breached, and it's not Fake News! What were those Nile rulers up to? In Egypt, cats are sacred. The Great Sphinx. Tabitha's transition. Dozers, mowers . . .

Late at night, snuggled under covers as often before, she had managed one last, almost inaudible purr.

Then silence. Without incense and all the trappings. All the world's suffering – gone.

Birds sing. Dozers doze . . .