Lead RingLast night, the circus of kittens took up station on various stoops on the street and sang a choir for unknown reasons. I stepped out onto the porch to investigate and found two of them, as cute as possible, nonchalant and quiet. They looked at me as disdainful artists might look upon critics, those from the tribe that can only offer reaction instead of creation. I do not think that a fair assessment of the art of criticism, but I got the distinct impression that the cats would not hold much care over such sentiments. All of the singing stopped, though: the night returned to silence perhaps due to audience, more likely for other grounds.
The kittens are feral, living as a family with their parents under a nearby Japanese maple. The mother has been seen worrying, stalking. The father is a vast bulk, a trophy cat, a giant heap of gravity plopped atop pathways with a swishing tail, taking to shade in these hot days. The light falls relentless out there, warm and bright. The kittens do not care, and romp in the yard.
I do not mow the lawn as much as I perhaps should. It is good to let it grow a little long, particularly in the heat; the grasses shade themselves as they know how to do, the thick carpet keeps water in the soil. There is also the pleasant sight of the winds rippling the blades, movements of air visible, patterns flowing through the yard and on to places elsewhere, once again unseen. I take great joy in watching it, except as a signal that I should really mow the grass. The kittens had much fun in the long stuff, too: jumping, rooting, chasing bugs and tumbling together, splashes of color in the gently waving green. I mowed the lawn the other day, robbing them of their little savanna.
I could plant cat mint for them, but I do not know if it would be kind.
The cicadas sing mechanical, hidden in the leaves of the trees. They mask the distant rumblings of cars and planes with stuttering starts, arcs of trembling rattle, the slow stalling before they ready themselves to begin again. There is still a trickle of raspberries, and a bowl of gooseberries sits on the counter. I am on the porch with a cold drink from Andalusia and a bright cheese from just east of there, each from a tradition as old as the other. The evening heat is a soft press on the shoulders, the temples, the small of the back.
EnginesThe hammer of summer has fallen again: it is hot. The mornings are misty, the early sun promising a pouring of light as it fights upwards to take station. The afternoons are the calm scurry from shade to shade. Twilight is close, languid, and the evening is the long drawn wait for the breezes to cut the air down again. It is making me slow. The tomatoes are nearly shaking with joy.
This morning on the way to the Library, I stopped a bit to watch time trials. We have something of a race here, vintage cars singing their teeth into a twisting course of closed road that climbs around the local park. I sat on the small hill overlooking the fast turn at the end of the bridge, comfortable against the slope and grateful for the shade. People came to watch; there were photographers, unhappy in that the could not shoot images from the end of the bridge (a dangerous place for them), young men and women on bicycles, wondering how to reroute their day, old men with faces lit bright as something growled by.
They have voices, these cars. They clatter and howl, some of them, a brass of fast explosions. Others are smooth even after all these years, take to the business of pushing through corners with strong strides. From the hill, they would announce their presence first on the far side of the park, growling dreamlike in the distance. In short order they came around the turn, weight shifted outside, sound and sight snapping into focus for a brief moment before they were off again, gone again, out of sight and lost in the trees while we waited for the next one.
After the Library but before the markets, I managed to get tangled in an ethnic festival completely by accident; another road closure, but this time done by bright blue tents from sidewalk to pavement. Long tables, music, food: sausages, pierogi, cabbages, good things to drink. The route remapped, to market then, and this time into the jaws of another festival, set up on a small piece of cross street that serves as home to the notion that putting fries in a sandwich isn't such a bad notion after all.
Getting home was something of a trick. I can't talk about it, of course; apologies.
A friend of mine turned to me, and said: "so, how does the air get into green peppers?" I know the answer to that one. A different friend on a different occasion in these recent days also turned to me, and said: "y'know what's good? Baklava, but with hazelnuts. That's pretty good." And so it is that I have phyllo in the freezer, honey in the cupboard, and a sack worth of filberts on the kitchen table. I do not know the answer to that one yet, though. It is hot.
All content under copyright by the author. Dancing is permitted. The strange deltic glyphs in the sand under tidal flow are a pleasure to watch in their deepening. Offer not valid in Kansas. We put it down and then we lost it. It all happens in the corner of the eye. Mail accepted for the bears in the basement. We have a dog, but we do not own it. Thank you.