That was two hours ago. I went out a couple of times, and they were still at it. Finally, a few minutes ago, Portia decided to come in and leave the garage to the bird. I turned the light out, so I expect the bird will find a perch and go to sleep, thinking that night has finally fallen. Portia will be wanting out again eventually, and the bird will wake up when I put the light back on, and the game will probably resume. I now picture it going on for days, until the bird grows weak from starvation and Portia is finally able to catch it. While I do feel some sympathy for the bird, I suspect that this individual's eventual demise can only be beneficial the gene pool of its species.
Aside from this little drama, nothing much is happening here. Autumn has settled into a routine of warm days and cool nights, and I have settled into a routine of being vague and distracted. Perhaps whatever matter gets into the air this time of year has a soporific effect on me. I spend hours daydreaming, paying attention to reality only when it must be attended to, and then begrudgingly. In October, I always become a bit envious of Rip Van Winkle. While I wouldn't want to sleep for twenty years, a nap that lasted until spring could be nice. It might be nice to wake up and find that April was here. But then I supposed it would depend on what dreams I had. If, for example, I spent the entire time dreaming that spring was here, waking up to April might be a bit anticlimactic. I guess I should just go ahead and deal with the seasons in their due order. April will get here eventually.
Sunday Verse
Atlantis- A Lost Sonnet
by Eavan Boland
How on earth did it happen, I used to wonder
that a whole city—arches, pillars, colonnades,
not to mention vehicles and animals—had all
one fine day gone under?
I mean, I said to myself, the world was small then.
Surely a great city must have been missed?
I miss our old city —
white pepper, white pudding, you and I meeting
under fanlights and low skies to go home in it. Maybe
what really happened is
this: the old fable-makers searched hard for a word
to convey that what is gone is gone forever and
never found it. And so, in the best traditions of
where we come from, they gave their sorrow a name
and drowned it.