these earlier “back tracks“, of which the following is one example, are pieces I consider still to be worth your while
please enjoy
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November 9, 2006
this has been a year of only a clutch of miracles
of course they always abound, but some years, beset by crushing ordeals, miracles seem few and far between, and pale and falter beside the anguish and despair you suffer
yesterday I marvelled at the colours of the leaves, the reds, the golds, the purples, that still and magnificently clung to the branches of much thinner trees now that they had lost the weight and splendour of their foliage
the sun upon the colours made them quiver, gleam, glimmer
look, I told my walking mate, a painting, and spread my arm across the panoply that contained what I saw
Monet, he replied
indeed, I said, but also Klimt, the gold, the glitter
I could barely listen on for the wonder
and Van Gogh for the branches, I continued, caught up in my world of live Impressionism, crotchety, angular, mad, I described
and there are millions of these leaves, I went on, transported beyond Impressionism into verily awe, not two of them alike, an infinity of numbers
that’s a miracle
a day earlier a friend had come over to lunch, after which we’d amble on over to the art gallery for an exhibit that was on
a gull sat on the ledge of my window, at my aerie on the twelfth floor
maybe it’s your father, she said
maybe, I replied, but couldn’t then and there make the connection
it stayed long enough for her to mention it again after I’d gone on for some time more, she was facing the window, I was not, I’d returned to our conversation
the gull looked in, on, curious, spirited
but I still saw just a gull
last evening I remembered that it would’ve been my parents anniversary had my father survived, called my mom, asked her out, we had dinner nearby, the date had slipped me by
later still I remembered about the gull, who perhaps had not forgotten