A Hint Of Debris

It’s cool in the early morning. The window screens breathe in and out with the breeze. The sun finds all sorts of windows it’s not on speaking terms with three seasons a year. Its fingers point out a spot a painter missed in 1901.

The birds are arguing or in love — what’s the difference — and the butterflies start their congeries of flightpaths around the lupines and phlox. I’ve already opened the basement below the basement, and put the bicycle out on the patch of pavement behind the house that is my boy’s ration. He’ll spend the morning looping around it a thousand times, as precisely as a driver with a sponsor.

There’s a hint of debris from a neighbor’s visit on the table before the couch in my office. Last night his European charges sat barefoot on the floor before the screen and pressed their ration of buttons with my sons, while we sat two doors away in my midden and talked of this and that and not much. He is smart but not an Intellectual and that’s the only kind of person you want in your house. He told us the Massachusetts people who bought the house on the corner, who only show up once in a great while, were rude to him while he was out walking his dog. He’s been here since Eisenhower.

He said it like he was talking about strangers. Not to strangers. For a brief, shining moment you wondered if  you finally belonged somewhere.