Kristen and Goose
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John and Karen, Goose’s parents, invited me for dinner last night. Matt, too, but he already had plans to be with Debbie and her folks. We enjoyed a perfect end of summer meal: corn, rice, salad with fresh tomatoes and steak from the grill. I’d also grabbed a tall smoky glass with a dark band of blue from the kitchen cabinet and filled it with, ice, tonic water, a jigger of gin and perfect wedge of lime.

We talked about many things, from school to developers, to John’s Insight’s gas mileage and house repair. Every once in a while I’d look at John and hint at things more political. He and I inhabit a lonely corner of left field and because he is receptive, I tend to expose my most rabid thoughts. But with Goose at the table, the topics remained airy, such as the incoming class.

“You should see this freshman’s neck,” Goose said, “It’s only about this wide.” He help his thumbs and forefingers together to make a circle not much large than my glass.

“Makes you want to snap if off, doesn’t it?” An innocent, natural reply, I thought.

Karen had already left the table, but from above the sound of running water and clattering dishes I heard, “Now why would you even think of saying that?”

Diane (the itty bitty person passing through the metal detector) on her way to Minnesota.

Today’s visit with Flo.
The photo, if Diane were here, she wouldn’t let me post .

Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
“For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned.” And she will.

Ted Kooser

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At Great Pond
the sun, rising,
scrapes his orange breast
on the thick pines,
and down tumble
a few orange feathers into
the dark water.
On the far shore
a white bird is standing
like a white candle —
or a man, in the distance,
in the clasp of some meditation —
while all around me the lilies
are breaking open again
from the black cave
of the night.
Later, I will consider
what I have seen —
what it could signify —
what words of adoration I might
make of it, and to do this
I will go indoors to my desk —
I will sit in my chair —
I will look back
into the lost morning
in which I am moving, now,
like a swimmer,
so smoothly,
so peacefully,
I am almost the lily —
almost the bird vanishing over the water
on its sleeves of night.

Mary Oliver

Margo Lane came to work for Lamont Cranston after he saved her eccentric scientist father from death . Margo is Lamont’s friend and closest confient. She has been trained in the arts of disguise, self defense, and general espionage techniques.
Resemblance to Diane a coincidence? I think not.

Diane’s collaborative Lighting party photos .

For my mother on her eighty-eigtht birhday.

Just past dawn, the sun stands
with its heavy red head
in a black stanchion of trees,
waiting for someone to come
with his bucket
for the foamy white light,
and then a long day in the pasture.
I too spend my days grazing,
feasting on every green moment
till darkness calls,
and with the others
I walk away into the night,
swinging the little tin bell
of my name.

Ted Kooser