Alone and solitary only look alike in a photo.

These are the plums, revisited. I was going to do cherry sap from the same roll, but that picture has never been digitized. In some ways, that's very comforting.

Some colors I wouldn't dare put in a rainbow.

So it's been more than a month since I last sang, and this was starting to bother me. I've really been wanting to sing, but my current living arrangements don't allow it. I've got neighbors. I live in a duplex. And when I go to school, there are other people studying. And there's really nowhere where I can be alone. Some of you may think that I'm being far too self-conscious or ridiculous or something to feel that I can't sing just because I have neighbors. Others of you have heard me sing. I mean, actually sing. I'm just sayin'. So, today, I decided to ride my bike west until I got to the middle of nowhere where I would feel like I could sing. I eventually found a spot - near the hawk (pictured) - but it took longer than expected, so I only sang while on my bike. That's also where I was when I took the majority of these photos. Digital images.

Migratory

There are birds that fly over, which feels significant. The sky at twilight isn't poisoned the way the word is, but instead is yellow, orange, yellow-orange, vespering.

See, birds flying over gives this place a feeling of openness, of belonging. Not belonging, but not alone either. The horizon seems to suggest that there's a place from which birds might come, a place that they might go. I came through here on a train, once. I knew I would return. I didn't know that reflecting ponds of water in a recently graded construction sight would lead me to spontaneously salute the not-yet-yellow sky.

Supporting documents

Rain...


Tortillas.

Not everything, maybe

So the bruises, the little red spots, are gone from the tips of my fingers, the ones I hit over and over again while roofing the shop out behind my family's home. That's good, because I was sometimes reminded of Isaiah 49. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't doing any comparisons, it's just that those verses would come to mind, and that probably wasn't for the best. Anyway, sometimes forgetting is good, in a way.

The nails were very short, see, too short to hold normally, so I had to hold them with my hand palm up between the first two fingers:
This led to me hitting my fingers. Also, if anyone would care to read my palm, all those lines are absolutely accurate. I know, incredible life line, right?

I wish I could remember everything

When I was five, my family took a trip to the Washington D.C./ Maryland area, where my grandparents and several other relatives lived. While there we visited Annapolis. In Annapolis, there are brick streets. Not everywhere, but in parts. There's a roundabout that I have in mind which I might also call a traffic circle, and I believe it was there that I started to walk out into the brick street as a five-year-old when my dad grabbed me. Because the streets were brick, I didn't think to look both ways before crossing, but luckily my dad was paying attention because he narrowly saved me from being hit by a car coming around the circle.

In Argentina, I was in San Martín when, while we were talking with a man on the side of a dirt road in Villa del Carmen, a little girl (3 or 4?) darted between us running out into the street just as a car was coming. I grabbed her by the shirt about a second before a the car passed -- the driver hit his breaks as soon as he saw her, but he couldn't have stopped in time. The girl gave me a mean look for grabbing her.

This is out of character, but I liked this:

So I went out on a bike ride because it felt like Mendoza this morning.

8:34 pm

Air is never sickly –
hazy, smoky, foggy, crisp,
dry. But never sickly.

I imagine this haze
is a veil of fog
rising out of asphalt,
and dirt streets,

brick buildings lit
too dimly inside. I
imagine the coldness
of the morning.

I imagine the
smell, the not-home-
baked bread and I
imagine the exquisite

beauty of those
chains of crusty rolls.

8:40 pm

Darkness is not
only thick, but visible
in a way that’s hard
to imagine inside.

One moon isn’t
enough on a night
like this. Its
yellow is too

Autumnal, its fullness
too near to me, its
roundness too incomplete.

I will not look to see
if it waxes or wanes,
I will look at a dark path
to see it does not cut.

8:46 pm

Cain and Abel must
anticipate swapping stories.
Brothers in a lonely land
must share more than
a table and lentil soup,
Dipping torn crusts, and
buttering cut bread.
A hot knife was never
needed to slip through
and divide
such exquisite feeling.
When I sat and ate with
them, I looked from brother
to brother and
felt at home.

SORRY

Christmas Lights

I guess those are Christmas lights, technically speaking. They're being used to decorate the sign in front of Baja Tacos in Santa Fe. Some of the best food in the world is there - I personally recommend the bean and tofu burrito smothered in green chile and the breakfast burrito (without meat) smothered in green chile. I've never actually had the breakfast burrito smothered in green chile. I wanted that, and I thought I ordered that, but I'm told I only said, "with green chile," and all the breakfast burritos come with your choice of red or green chile inside. The burrito was still fantastically delicious. However, I'm afraid I was also ordering the same thing for William, and he was rather disappointed that his was not smothered. One thousand apologies without changing, che. The red chile is also good there. I recommend the green. Also, I'm rather pleased with the fact that I was able to get the lights there at all - I had to go in and edit the HTML by hand, which isn't something I'm particularly trained to do. I had a class in seventh grade that prepared me some, though.