by Kristina Amelong

Saturday in May. Not sure the date. I know the waves in the lake lap against the shore. I know the wind blows the red rose bush next to the brick building. I know the swallows circle around the willow tree.

Pen to paper. Pen to paper. Again, I know nothing, nothing to write down, nothing to share with you, nothing in my mind. Nothing.

Back to what I know. Grass beneath my sandaled feet. Rivers of ink forming letters, now words, now sentences and,  maybe more importantly, now love. Do you hear it?

A lone Cedar tree welcomes the clouds as they arrive. I still do not know what the date is. Seems we humans constructed time so we could catch trains, go somewhere, do something.

A woman under a red baseball cap lies on a white woolen blanket, reading. She is still except her toes move about like a colony of ants or a school of fish or a chocolate Labrador rolling on a dead fish. I wonder what those toes are thinking, feeling, where they are going? She turns her page, scratches her nose. What is she reading? Moments before, she lay in the sun on the wooden pier covered in white, dried birdshit on that white woolen blanket. Now she lies against the slope of  a small grassy hill with her book, her blanket, her red baseball cap and her busy toes.

I still don't know what the date is. Did I think writing about what I do know, what I noticed, would place me back in time like a man might set his beer on a bar after a long, satisfying gulp?

I hope so. Where am I without knowing time?

The grass below this picnic table, below the white wool blanket, next to the lapping waves, below the circling swallows, adjacent to the waving Cedar tree, is not only one color green, but rather patterned in diagonal stripes – telling me a person with a lawnmower once came here, to this place I am in and moved this lawnmower across this grass, on a different date.

What date is it now?

Windy. Fat. Possible. White caps on the lake. Kale. Broken pottery sculptures. Shit. This shit. Birdshit. Bicycle chains. Ancient metal birdbaths – empty, no water. White woolen blankets. May. Motorboats. Six legs, translucent wings; now on my thumb; now gone. A red kayak. A yellow kayak. "I like that one," the woman in the red baseball cap exclaims.

Labels: creating writing, soul