Digital Red Emery

   A red emery board lies on the asphalt, parallel to the yellow line that marks one of the spaces at the post office. As I fumble with the engineering compass to obtain the heading of the man-made arrow to find out if it is pointing north, I get a reading of 330: it appears to be shy of north by 30 degrees west. How did it get here? How did I get here?

   Today I am doing bullet work. There is just one thing that must be done today and that is pay the Target bill. I have accomplished that and more. Here is my account.

   I slept from (blank) until (blank) on the couch in the living room. When I got up I played guess the time .

   “It’s between two and three,” I said, traversing the dining room to bedroom and kitchen, where the clock on the stove read 2:27 in digital red.   

   I fed the cats, changed to go out and went out. I stopped at the bank to withdraw money. I drove toward Target. The sky, which delivered light rain this morning, now was the color of a bleached heron. An unbleached heron flew, flapping eastward, in the sky over Spring Ridge at 3:11. It made me glad to see one.

   Morphine was playing on the radio when I arrived at the shopping center. At Target, I picked up a lighter someone had dropped inside the store. It was filled with lighter fluid. It was light. It was pale pinky-orange-red. It was a cheap one. It had no markings. It lay on the carpet between the food area and the dollar deals section where the indoor carts cluster. A lighter would not be the kind of thing I would want running loose in my store. I gave it to the individual who processed my payment, which was for twenty per cent of the total and six times the minimum amount due. Exited without further excitement, leaving the lost light lighter behind, and photographed a round sticker with a happy giraffe face next to the pedestrian crossing area with its multi-stripes of safety yellow-orange that run at a diagonal to the curb kerb.

   Next, visited the library jonesing for a computer and suspecting they were in possession of my library card. Yes, they were holding. Was assigned a public computer next to a man who has been searching for a job from there for weeks. The computer monitor in front of him contains his resume.

   During a check on business, I learn Target has dropped Amazon Kindle. I learn I have an order to be fulfilled. The computer next to displays a letter to Human Resources. I go home to the fulfillment center and process my order. I learn about the evils of sugar by perusing a book, like when you go on a vacation you take one last look at where you’ve been. At 5:37 the package is taped and ready to go with me to the post office. I drive like a conservative bat out of hell to get it off by 6:00 p.m.

   “Take the Skinheads Bowling” plays in the radio during the drive on the expressway in Reading PA, much to my amusement. My amusement, My amusement. The package I busted ass to send off will arrive next Thursday, Next Thursday? Next Thursday!

   Read my memory. A red emery board is in the space I pull into at the post office. This is how it got there.

Presidente

   Hola! Pick of the Litter: Spanish bottle cap Presidente. Streaming sunshine, glittery water and squirrel activity on land and trees, no herons to report but two fly fisherman both had  blue shirts and the one with the hat seemed to be looking about for a wider audience while the other focused on casting a wider net.

   Yesterday visited Target to find out about trading in old camera for new camera and the associates helped me discover the old one still works, the battery required recharging. ( I thought I had dropped it and damaged it beyond feasible repair. ) So after walking caught up on a few missed photo opportunities with the camera Target values at $4.75, now I will run for President or drink a soda.

Sputniks

   The moveable-type lettering on the sign outside the greenhouse on the flat farmland advertises Pansies and Violas. On the hill are signs of new viniculture in the form of stakes and a working of the ogee-shaped contoured ground. Both of these I find stimulating, heartening and amusing.

   Today evaporated. It was another beautiful day spent sleeping. The only disturbance occurred early. A Mexican man could be seen scrambling along the landscape in front of the house. He tamped his right foot in the margin of the garden to see if it needed further spading and edging. He yanked on the viburnum, pulling the tips and snapping some of the leaves to test for life. In a wheelbarrow parked on the grass by the birch tree were clumps of sod and clay, like mounds of limp rodents with green fringe.

   After a good day’s sleep, I traversed a grassy plot and a parking lot to reach the library tonight.  The grassy plot contains a pair of sweet gum trees. In autumn the trees light up with green yellow and red stars as the stelliform leaves show their colors.  Little sputniks, with holes and spikes are left all around the bases of the two trees. Nearby is a patch of peanuts, left by one of the office women, who arrives early and tosses the legumes onto the grass before the sun comes up.

   Outside the library branch, I am unable to locate my library card. I return home to see if it is in my jeans or on one of the tables. I look inside my wallet and purse again. The last place I saw it was at the library last night. I go back to the library.

   “What are the chances that you have my library card?”

   One librarian searches the card file and working from the top down and back to front she cannot find it among the two dozen there. Her companion librarian finds a card on the desk with a post-it note with a telephone number. It’s mine. I had left it at the teen machines.

    I remember being disturbed and somewhat spun out of orbit last night as I wrote a post, making an attempt to compose, myself. It bothers me the current library policy allows for high-volume conversations. It seems to me there must be place for pockets of study, silence and contemplation that are not only in sacred spaces.  Lately I am forced to conclude and accept that public libraries have dropped from the ranks of quiet spots.

  One of the sweet gum balls attached to the tip of a shoelace and came along for a ride. It is time to go home.

8337

Norfolk Southern, black horse, white horse where are Yin and Yang? walk this morning to the first cardinal past the nine marker and then discovered the first heron, standing in the creek at a spot along the near shore where the water reached halfway up its legs. It was active in a rococo position, ess curves and voluptuousness as it preened and picked its feathers in between remaining alert for fish.

   The path was full of cardinals at one bend near the mill bridge, first one brilliant male, two females of lesser light and a trillion more to liven up the monochromatic grey-brown branches and trunks of the winter forest.

   A heron in pennant position also fishes from below the old sheep farm. It stands in the water at a place near the base of the old and moldy steps set into the steep incline.

   A lost glove was hung in a prickly shrub.

   The words of the day are bill pay.

Escape Key

   How do you hit the escape key in your life? How often, why and when? Where do you go?

   While spending some of the morning in wake-up mode, the beauty of the view outside the window – red and copper trees with a simple clear blue sky, reminded me of many instances I have hit the escape key and gone away for a day or two in the autumn when everything changes. Many things change all the time, in front of us and we are not aware, not attuned and focused on other events. The fall season appears to make aspects of change more evident, it highlights them, although you may make this argument for all of the seasons, all of the time. But the leaves drop and the temperatures often correspond.

   Having a committment to work tonight, a day long escape was out of the question, so I plotted a few escape routes throughout the day. I got into completing the last few answers to a crossword puzzle that became easy under the influence of pino grigio and pasta last night. Some telephone calls that needed to be made were made.

     I managed to escape for a walk. For the occasion, th pattern of the walk, its time, its course, its duration were changed. During this walk I found no herons. I was passed by trio of bicyclists in professional looking sports wear and then a pair of cyclists who look pudgy and misshapen and the man out of proportion to the transportation.

   There is a healthy squirrel industry today, the critters climb, dig, nibble and scamper. Last week, I had seen one on a limb that bent over and above the path. It sat in the pose of a squirrelwhen its tail curls up along its spine. This made me think of the mohawk style hairdo and I wondered if squirrels had inspired the cut.

   Along the path I found a slip of white paper with black printing. It reads Key Tag on the reverse side. The top edge is torn along perforations. The front contains a line for customer name. The line is blank. Two more lines, for R.O. # and Lic# are not filled in. The numerals 0668 have been printed by machine straight across in the right margin. A staple mark pierces the paper at right angle to the writing. Why is this interesting? It is a mild daytime mystery.

   From the park I have come to the library. The library is nothing special and it is something special simultaneously. I have parked in parking slot number 9. I have found an INSPECTOR NR23 sticker on the sidewalk leading along the northern side of the building on the way to the front door. I have found a wad of green gum marked with a waffle impression. I have to wait for a computer because all 17 are in use and there is a waiting list of half a dozen people. The new books are enticing and alluring and accupy my idle time. I go to the music and video area to find something good for the time I spend in the car.

    When I hear a man say to a woman: “These are fiction. They might be true,” I feel I have to marvel at the comedic truth of being in this situation. I have to think I am in exactly the right place for the time.

   On the way here it occurred to me that an escape key is good for escaping but sometimes to escape into something is a true test of life’s keyboard instrument. When a person or a group makes decision, there is to decide for, to decide against nd to reserve the right to decide. Not to decide is to decide, for now. Similarly, I may escape, I may not escape and I may reserve the right to escape at any time. Not to escape is to escape, for now. That little key in the upper left corner of your keypad is a ticket to wealth and prosperity, like a genie that grants three wishes – with the warning to be careful what you wish for and be careful in your escape mechanisms.

Rain After Midnight

Rain After Midnight

    At 9:20 this morning a petite heron fishes at the mill race. Its shoulder and upper back looks like it has taken back a Victorian lady’s hat that was made from feathers taken from another heron long ago and put them back on where they belong, clean and fresh.

   Second heron fishing stalking pennant pose on two clumps of leaves in the creek that look like its shadow: a small clump below the head and a larger clump under its body & three more heron in points strung out along the upper stretch & across from the red sandstone structure that holds an outlet pipe area & across from a dirt foot path that shoots off the main trail & leads to the creek for fishing or drinking water, on l& that forms a flat lip below the trail.

   The forecast was for Rain After midnight & this held true. It is a day for water & blue. I have found a blue streamer, half a blue note & an L & M package. Hardly anyone is out & about. One portion of the trail is littered with sycamore leaves. Whereas most leaves have a tendency to fall flat & present as two-dimensional forms. these leaves have fallen as folded pieces of paper & stand with some parts upright, like small tombstones or cootie catchers or some kind of natural slalom flags to warrant attention.

   While I was driving to the park this morning a tractor trailer marked S & F,   with a bright red logo trucking flashed by along Route 422 heading north toward Allentown. All I caught was Sylvester. This makes it a good day for ampersands, helpful people & travel,& other things.

Zilch

   Big  zero so far in the Heron Department and precious l;ittle else having had one Yuengling lager and a bag of cheese puffs for dinner late last night while figuring out the studio and the black and white kitten called Flare or Flair and where the money’s coming from and quiet mind quiet mind almost to point of amnesia is my  mind being quieted only to be unleashed. Gnarly gnarly. Eat fish, is nice muscle! What can be done with two dozen empty slide carousels?

489

   The most interesting thing of the day was a dollar bill that someone had altered with ballpoint pen to make the numbers 489, four times on the front of the bill. We had five minutes of sun in the morning and an hour or so in the afternoon at three – the gloominess continues and this comment from someone who likes moody days. Nines and fours and reds and purples galore and no herons here for sure. Brumby is better following an abcess that had him limping and lame last week.

Saved and Unscathed

   Texas wildfires report as told by NPR transmits this wonderful sound bite – saved and unscathed - as I am on my way to walk in the rain. The creek swells without spilling over and the color of the water is yellow green and there are no herons until I think there are no herons, when one flies from under cover of overhanging trees below me as I cross the dam bridge. The rainy day heron lands on the shale shoal on the other side. It strides and struts toward the inlet pipe from which a full column of water spews into the Tulpehocken. The bird exudes relaxed confidence, is dressed in smooth slate gray feathers and the tips of its feet are the color of orange peels.

   I have noted one other walker on the trail and a pair of overlapping sycamore leaves; the smaller was on top of the top of the larger as they lay on the ground.

   Having missed a report yesterday due to electric failure of the kind caused by a wayward wire, a bent piece of cord, that seems to have shorted out the personal computer belonging to the author of  The Heron Report, the main item of interest yesterday was a five dollar bill marked with the letters or word ALL and a series of blue ballpoint pen ticks or slashes, the number  repeating series and combination of  four, six and nine. Receiving the benefit of the diacritical marks was 69464964B.

   While making my way into Reading town, a freight train with a dirty white or light gray box car rambled overhead away from town as it crossed Route 422. The hand printed name Shep passed like a banner in the breeze of time.

Than u Gian

Jolly green grunge sticker plastered on asphalt turned up this morning on my way to the Sleepymobile. Irene is on the way, spin doctors aweigh.