Eventually I might have to put them in the washing machine because there is apt to be so little sun to dry them in the coming days, and I can't put them in the dryer when they are so dirty. The cats won't want to be napping on that counter anyway when rain is making the skylight leak. They will nap in the shed, or in the cupboard under the counter, or on the platform in the rafters of the garage, or maybe in secret places they've picked out around the neighborhood. They won't be needing the old towels in any case.
None of this is of special importance, of course, but I do worry about those feral cats in winter. Though they are fed (even overfed, perhaps) and have places where they can stay dry, still I see that they are distressed by the rain that keeps them from comfortably nosing about in their territory, and I'm sure they'd be happier if they at least had a warmer place in which to be bored. Or maybe I'm just projecting, because I'd certainly like a warmer place in which to be bored myself.
I doubt that having a warmer place in which to be bored would improve what I write, though. What bothers me most is that I have fallen into this slough in which my brain seems always to be swathed in a damp towel, and day after gray day I find myself unable to generate the heat to dry it out, or the energy to simply cast it off. The monotony is not in the weather alone. These days I am my own overcast, and there's no change in sight. My thoughts remain shade and drizzle, with no lightning in them. Just waiting for the sun to break through.
Sunday Verse
The Whale in the Blue Washing Machine
by John Haines
There are depths even in a household
where a whale can live...
His warm bulk swims from room
to room, floating by on the stairway,
searching the drafts, the cold
currents of water and liberation.
He comes to the surface hungry,
sniffs at the table,
and sinks, his wake rocking the chairs.
His pulsebeat sounds at night
when the washer spins and the dryer
clanks on stray buttons...
Alone in the kitchen darkness,
looking through steamy windows
at the streets draining away in fog;
watching and listening
for the wail of an unchained buoy,
the steep fall of his wave.
