My overly friendly, assumptive way of relating to strangers doesn’t always work.

I walked into the supermarket yesterday and for the first time I was struck by how efficient grocery stores are at expediting customers. Once again most of the shopping carts were inside the store, yet I knew that the line I’d stand in would be no more than one person deep. I guess it’s the number of cash registers, or that no one pays by check anymore, or that all the items are tagged, or that… ?

After Margaret asked me, “Paper or Plastic,” I said, “Supermarkets are amazing places.”

She looked at me.

“Think of the numbers of people who come and go and yet no lines.”

She smiled.

“If this were Home Depot or any other large store doing the equivalent volume, there would be lines.”

She handed me my receipt.

“Why thank you, and have a good day.”

Chillin’

Last fall, Ginger and I were driving back to her house in Newton, when a large hawk – pale belly with brown markings – swooped down and landed on a branch above us. We passed under him, with mouths agape. I know raptors are coming back to the cities, but this was the first time I had seen one in such a populated neighborhood although they frequently dine in my backyard.

We talked about the meaning of such events. I reminded her that Carlos Castaneda ascribed portentous future happenings to crows, and then Ginger brought up the book Animal Speak which prompted one of my short rants about how the older friends get the more they attribute natural events to the supernatural. The wind blows your back door closed and itís your great grandfather upset with your choice of toothpaste , that sort of thing.

Two days later, Diane, after her walk with Karen, stared out the back window as a hawk landed in the dead maple that borders our yard with Dolly Smithís. She was transfixed by its size and demeanor. The raptor perched for an hour in profile, staring with a lone yellow eye into Dianeís cold-Atlantic blues. By the time I arrived home, the hawk was gone from the tree but not from Dianeís mind.

She became, in a word – obsessed: hours spent on line flipping through photos of raptors, calls to her Aubudon friend Karen, frequent trips to the window to gaze into the dying tree. Days after that eye contact, we wandered off to Willow Books, and while I got lost in the latest photographic chronology of W.W.II, Diane sat cross legged on the floor, flipping through bird books.

Maybe it was Dianeís attention to the hawk that helped focus mine. I looked up from the Sunday paper and witnessed a hawk explode on a single pigeon feeding in a group of a dozen. A shotgun blast might have kicked-up more feathers. Another day, I walked outside and heard bird screams. There was a hawk, wings spread, on top of a small black bird. And, I mean a bird that was black, which happened to be a poor choice for the hawk because five crows immediately descended on him.

I left my house today after having lunch and as I approached my truck, there in my driveway, ten feet away, perched a hawk atop and pulling the innards out of, a pigeon. I froze; he froze. I looked at him;he looked at me. I thought of Diane, then I thought – camera. The hawk thought – not today – and flew off with dripping, feathery remains in his talons.

First Dream

Iím lying in a white cast iron bathtub, the kind with legs, but not claw feet, and Iím riding around Acton. Or sliding. The tub stops in front of the bank on Main St. and I peer out. I donít see anyone, but the sun is up and it feels to be about noon. What to do? I mean, I am naked. I stand up anyway and Iím relieved (somewhat) to see my jockeys lying in a heap next to the tub. They look as they do in my bathroom – long past their replace date and in a heap. I grab them and run to the side of pharmacy for shelter and pull them on. Iím very conscious that Iím still in public and that there has to be people watching. I am no longer stark naked, I donít feel all that great about walking around only in my underwear. Dream ends.

Second Dream

I enter a single story concrete building. I walk in through the front door and follow a trail of rooms. Each room I enter has its own door that closes behind me. At some point I realize I donít know where I am, I donít know where I am going, and I donít know what to do but keep walking forward.

I look down and next to me is a young blonde girl, maybe eight. There is one room left and together we peer through the door and out the plate glass window in that room to an airport-like tarmac. It resembles the tarmac in Pittsburgh where we catch our connecting flights on the way to Evansville – when weíve switched from a real jet to a mini jet tucked away in little used area of the airport. It feels ominous and I suggest we not enter the room. The girl does anyway and I lose sight of her. I look back and the room Iím in has no door handle. The door is steel and canít be opened from my side. I know the next room where the girl disappeared is the same. I can only go forward. Then the girls mother appears, frantic. I point in the direction her daughter went, and she runs after her. Dream ends.

I’ve bumped into Phil at Idylwilde, at Skip’s, at our breakfast place on Main St. (he calls it the “deli”), and at the rookery. On my first rookery walk with Diane two years ago, Phil showed us the beaver dam that created the swamp. Phil told us he walks from his house across the street from Idylwilde, to the deli to the rookery and back to the deli every morning. Yesterday, as I was headed in, warm in my truck, I passed Phil, on foot, bundled against the cold. He strode down Littlefield Road, parallel and away from the rookery . I waved, but his eyes sandwiched between the bill of his hat and the scarf over his nose, were locked straight ahead.

I turned right, off the pavement and into the deep snow. I drove with my left tire a foot away from the iron rail, and the passenger side of my truck bounded by steep banks of snow. I followed one set of fresh tire tracks all the way to the trail that leads to the nests. I parked as far from the tracks as possible, got out and walked past the now-buried refrigerator, under the snowy overhanging branches and onto the ice.

When I returned, there stood Phil, peering into my truck.

“What a day,” I hollered against the wind.

“What?”

“Great day, isn’t it?

“Yes, but cold.”

“Not so bad back in the trees.”

He’d spoken to me the day before at Skip’s, but I’m pretty certain he didn’t remember.

“You walked back in? In all that snow?” I liked the compliment.

“I sunk to my knees, but the workout kept me warm. I see you walked in my tire tracks.”

I guessed he had turned to see me drive off the road and had decided to investigate.

“I walk here every day. With the deep snow, I was happy to see the tire tracks . I saw four blue birds … .”

“I’ve never seen a blue bird.”

“…a mockingbird, a cardinal, a red-tailed hawk…I think that’s what it was.”

“And you walk alone? No wife?”

I can only stand talking about birds for so long, and besides, I was tired of my own stories about Phil.

“No, no wife” he laughed, “I’ve been alone a long time.”

“You must have been married, what, thirty years?”

A complete guess on my part, but given his age, his eyes… .

“Thirty-two years, thirty-one…no, thirty two.”

“And you’ve been divorced for a long time, maybe twenty years… ?”

“Over a decade. I like being alone. Lots of men get divorced and jump right back into marriage. It can be catastrophic.”

“Catastrophic?”

“I have a friend, Ron, who lives in Houston. He got divorced and was thinking about remarrying. I gave him a list of things to consider. I think there were eleven items on my list.”

“Words of caution?”

“First, do you want to provide food and shelter for the woman? Secondly, do you want to be responsible for all her medical bills?”

Phil wore gray woolen mittens with a flap that allows access to your fingers. He pulled the flap off so he could tick off his list. The thumbs of his mittens reminded me of my father’s. They were wrapped in masking tape as if to repair tears. I didn’t interrupt him; I laughed out loud. He is not so much older than I, but still trapped by that old-time view of women. I grew up with that, not in my home, but as part of the social fabric.

“Do you want to network with all her relatives? Interact with her cousins and aunts and uncles, and her parents?”

“I’m pretty sure the correct answer is, no.”
Phil
Another nest photo

After braving thin ice this morning to capture the nests in the Heron Rookery in Littleton, I returned home to find this email from Adam: “I forgot to mention the observation that had actually prompted me to call as I passed your house yesterday — how cool the Heron Swamp on Rt. 2 looked, all snowbound and with a heavy overlying fog in the pink/purple setting sun. ”

The interesting/disappointing thing is, from Rt. 2, with the added elevation of ten or so feet, the nests are much more impressive than when seen from ground level. I always want to stop and shoot from the side of the road, but there is barely a shoulder and I have visions of getting arrested or erased.

Because I have done this myself.

Diane hiding from the rain in Switzerland.

I had an estimate this morning and I met, in addition to the woman interested in me doing the work, Jazz.

This is the 500th entry.

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Emma,
What I remember is Matt at 4 and Kate at 2 climbing up those little stairs they placed outside the nursery for siblings to see the new little one at St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua. They were so excited and they were so cute, and you were so beautiful.
And then you were in your Mom’s room, and they were sharing a chair, and you were so little and so beautiful.
Godma

Heath Hen Meadow, Acton. Feburary, 2001.
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E.D. In Coma

In her mind, in bare feet
she is walking among

April’s first
cold
pubic violets, still

here, heaven haunted
her eyes

and lips
closed:
Soon

so soon I’ll be a part
of all that I
now merely
see

Franz Wright

I post-holed toward the garage in pursuit of more black sunflower seeds to fill my empty bird feeder. I turned and saw the Andrew Wyeth . (Btw, what do you think of this crop, dissenter?) I ran back to get my camera, certain the sun would set in seconds, not hours, and snapped away. But I couldn’t translate what I saw onto the screen, and I couldn’t crop it to my satisfaction. The storm window interrupts the white wood frame. The final version is not perfect, but I agree with rakkity, there is a lot to look at, and I do like the way the small image bleeds into the dark grey background.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my brother, Brian, on Friday. I was praising Dakota’s eye when he said, “I’ve never set up a photograph. I shoot away and wait to see what develops.” I replied, “I’ve never gotten what I’ve set out to shoot. It I plan a shot, it’s always a disappointment.”
The flip side of that is I get all kinds of surprises. Yesterday’s comments, for instance.

Here’s yesterday’s version, Jennifer. It was posted for maybe five minutes.