I saw a few birds on Saturday, and a few insects. A daddy long legs spider is rebuilding the web around the back porch light after I swept it away a couple of days ago. I haven't seen Taylor the lizard lately, or the other lizard, but now and then I do hear rustling in the plants, and maybe that's lizard noise. The heat i still appalling by day and unpleasant most of the night, but next week is expected to bring three days with highs of a mere 95 degrees and nocturnal lows in the mid-sixties. I'll have to make do with that as the closest thing to a respite we are likely to get for now. I try not to remember that August is often hotter than July in these parts.
It looks like my shopping trip will be on Monday. My list is still growing, but I'm not sure everything on it will be available. I'm not sure that's even important. At the moment I can't think clearly about food as I've just spent several minutes stuffing myself with some dates and pecans I'd forgotten I had. I lose track of so many things anymore. But at least today I remember what day it is.
Sunday Verse
Cinque Terre
by Jon Pineda
Between the train's long slide and the sun
ricocheting off the sea, anyone
would have fallen silent in those words,
the language of age in her face, the birds
cawing over the broken earth, gathering near its stones
and chapel doors. In the marina, the sea and its bones
have grown smaller. Though the tide is out,
it is not the tide nor the feathers nor the cat
that jumps into the street, the dust
lifting with each wing and disappearing. The rust-
colored sheets that wrap the sails of ships,
I don't know their name nor the way to say lips
of water in Italian and mean this: an old woman
stood by the tracks until his hand stopped waving.