I’m standing outside my locked car. The road is on the edge of the city. The city is on the edge of a field. The field is on the edge, too, but it’s more than itself and the city is less. The cars go by and after they die away I hear an owl hooting in the field and a sound I’ve never heard before. The straw tossled in the ditch. Stiff weeds waving pale flowers in the wind. As the headlights fade out of my eyes the colors that arise don’t surprise me. A brown just the color brown is. The smell of good dirt, damp air. The sky all day now has been cast with clouds from the sea and now they’re getting closer. Everything is getting closer.
9 September 1974