Anyway.
The next ten days are not only going to be dryer than expected (rain has been canceled for all but one day, and that day's chance of rain is slim) but warmer as well. Azaleas have already begun blooming, and they are going to be demanding water. I'll be spending more of the lengthening evenings irrigating plants with rare and expensive water, and then this summer they will probably all have to die anyway. We haven't received any official notifications to conserve water yet, but I expect one to accompany this months bill. There will probably be a notification of increased rates, too. I anticipate neither with relish.
Speaking of relish, I did remember to buy some today. Had I remembered to buy the lunch beer I would not have bought the relish, as there would not have been enough money for it. Neither would I have bought to tub of spreadable butter, or the two artichokes, or the red grapefruit. But there appeared to be extra money, so I spent some of it. Now I realize there wasn't any extra, and I'll have to dip into the change box and roll some of the coins coins in it to get enough for the beer. Un-disruptions to my schedule are as annoying as disruptions.
I do intend to enjoy the upcoming mild weather as much as possible, though. Mildness is apt to be rare this summer, and I'll have to pay for what I get now with increased discomfort then. I don't want to waste the mild days, so I'll probably be spending less time with the Internets and the television and more with the outdoors. The mildestness doesn't begin until Thursday, though, so I have a few days to stay in yet. Then premature spring will be upon us, for a week at least. Spring before February ends! I feel like mourning the winter that hasn't been.
Sunday Verse
Why Do You Stay Up So Late?
by Marvin Bell
Late at night, I no longer speak for effect.
I speak the truth without the niceties.
I am hundreds of years old but to do not know how many hundreds.
The person I was does not know me.
The young poets, with their reenactments of the senses, are asleep.
I am myself asleep at the outer reaches.
I have lain down in the snow without stepping outside.
I am frozen on the white page.
Then it happens, a spark somewhere, a light through the ice.
The snow melts, there appear fields threaded with grain.
The blue moon blue sky returns, that heralded night.
How earthly the convenience of time.
I am possible.
I have in me the last unanswered question.
Yes, there are walls, and water stains on the ceiling.
Yes, there is energy running through the wires.
And yes, I grow colder as I write of the sun rising.
This is not the story, the skin paling and a body folded over a table.
If I die here they will say I died writing.
Never mind the long day that now shrinks backward.
I crumple the light and toss it into the wastebasket.
I pull down the moon and place it in a drawer.
A bitter wind of new winter drags the dew eastward.
I dig in my heels.