Write as if you were dying... This is, after all, the case... What
could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its
triviality?
-Annie Dillard
I ride through the
coastal morning. The sea mist is in, the palms and hotels inchoate.
This coast encrusted with asphalt and buildings like blocks of
mineral.
I ride the river
path where the mugwort grows, where herons row the air. People lined
up on their cardboard beds under the bridges, colored by shadow and
dust. Three men pass a forty, frothy as urine. The growl of traffic.
Cigarette smoke and sea salt.
Cali is eleven
months old. A few days ago she took eight steps on her own. Of the
light on the walls in the morning, of the nylon straps of her high
chair, of the many blooms of the rose bush, of the ringing wind
chimes, she repeats the phrase again and again, so pretty, so pretty.
