Its like changing channels

I don’t know how you do it. Excuse me. she took the book from his hands The Clan of the Cave Bear Yesterday you were reading Nin’s Incest, the day before Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America.

Yes Look at you Im impressed with your memory

Don’t be, you read books I’ve never heard of, it’s easy for the author and the titles to stick; an so I don't forget them I text them to myself as I walk after we part.

she was a neighbour he ran into during his morning walk reading  

Clever

Not so much as intrigued.

Well Im happy my selections intrigue you

Truth be known, you intrigue me. But that’s between you and I and not my husband.

he laughed

             Safe with me

And I have no doubt. You strike me as terribly honest.

My ethics My girls tell me Im brutally honest . . and that I shouldnt be They call me unsparing I remind them that I didnt spare them and theyre just fine and dandy

now he was reading Reinventing the Enemy’s Language

                                                            juggling the four books and curious what would attract his fancy next  five books

changing channels

he had no anticipationno planno concerted route

idling  dawdling  takingenjoying his time

                                             oiled with black coffee he wished a whiskey nibbling the fifth of eight apple slices smelling the ruptured orange and tangerine skins his mate laid beside his fruit on the cobaltblue oblong platter glazed to look like a night sky washed with paleyellow moonlight

it was a favourite

a friend had thrown it on her wheel the platter and a couple smaller plates an endearing joke making fun of his penchant for odd the queer the irrational

she was killed the rest of the smaller plates smashed when a tree outside her studio went over during a violent freak storm a rare tornado occurring beside the ocean in Ventura

things werent what he and she grew up with as kids

trying to console himself it occurred to him that she was a victim collateral damage  the Earth is striking back in the only language human beings seem to understand violence

there was going to be more violent storms and floods and tornadoes and hurricanes earthquakes cataclysmic tectonic shifts volcanoes tsunamis vulgar viruses  all sorts of violence and death to remindif forgotten that human beings are puny they are as insignificant as they see insects to be the rodents they fumigate poison and trap

Earth as unsparingly was reminding humans  Welcome back to the foodchain

0830,  Sunday,  29  12. 19

1111,  Saturday,  16  5. 20

Gail Tremblay  Mi’kmaq and Onondaga Indian  Light dances in the body, surrounds all living things -- even the stones sing . .