Bare Tree. Springs out like a dead hand from Nowhere on a piece of parched land, stretching, aching from never-ending spells of gloom. Wind dies slowly and painfully, reduced now to whispering wheezes. Boiling Sun floats in red grime, flaring up at angry intervals of rage with killing heat.
Space stretches into tortured elastic between parting tracks. Snaps. Shoots into space, falls down, trembling like a dying lizard's tail, limp, pathetic.
Tiny seeds like Blackness fall off Bare Tree, spiraling with mad frenzy, spitting out Distance with no horizon, separated from the beginning by light years.

Why Boston is home
It's raining today - like it has been for two weeks now. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been happy living in London or Seattle, under the clouds and constant pitter-patter against my window. Yes, I probably would be, because I like the clouds. They make me feel warm and safe, huddled under the grey blanket that shields me from the bright light.

Boston and its surrounding towns put me at ease almost immediately. Like an old sweater I had washed and worn for years, they wrapped me in a sense of comfort and belonging. Even today, as I walk on the streets looking up at the old city skyline, the massive university structures, the coffee shops and heavily made-up window displays of book stores, I relish every moment like the first bite off a crunchy pear from the orchard.

I'll never forget how New England welcomed me and gave me what I honestly, truly always wanted. My greatest gift (that sits on the couch, glued to the laptop, chases the basement mouse at two in the morning, is a helpless romantic about almost everything from dogs to art, stubborn about every single thing ever conceivable, insanely flexible about everything, and drives me to tears and laughter with almost no effort).

We own a river in this little town. Or so we would like to think. When we first moved to this house a long time ago, we were terribly excited about this river flowing just a few hundred feet away. Every summer morning, we would religiously put on our shoes, slide an apple or two into our jacket pockets and walk out. Our face to the sun, our noses in the air, a half-smile spread across our face, we would walk by "our river" - the place we shared our first quiet moments. I had been shaking inside, my heart skipping every other beat and my smile quivering under the night air.

I won't forget our old wooden train station. It's not a train "station" in the larger sense of the word. It's just a raised wooden shed standing precariously on old legs, shaking and rattling as the trains rumble by. On our first train ride to Boston, we were lost in the landscape of the rural Beverly and each other's hands while the stern ticket master, a big man wearing a proud navy-blue uniform and gold-rimmed spectacles, waited for us to break out of our reverie.

The first winter had choked the tears in our eyes. Temperatures that we had only heard about froze every bit of our enthusiasm until that cold December evening when I insisted on going for the poetry-reading and New Year's Eve parade. Walking down the hill, gritting our teeth, burying our hands deep into our pockets and talking about our toes being frozen, we had seen the bus leave the station, a few hundred feet from us. The sun was setting in the late-afternoon horizon and we walked back, only to walk down again and find a train. We huddled together on the floor of that crowded room and listened to amateur poets.

In the summer we were like little birds in a nest, always squealing and shrieking, excited about nothing for no reason at all. The flowers on the trees! The ducks in the river! The skunk in the backyard! The possum on the street! We needed no reason to celebrate.

The almost incessant rain - winter, summer or fall - grey clouds that called for a long afternoon nap or a walk by the pond.
The first big screen TV - bought and returned more out of guilt than a technical error. The blue-green couch with giant flowers, the new car in the thunderstorm, the basil in the window, the air conditioner humming and huffing uneasily...
So tell me - what are homes made of, if not by fond memories?

Like white, stinging rain it falls, reminding me with each flake that pain still exists. It seems like it’s been snowing since the beginning of time itself. Powdery stings gently wafting from the sky, settling down stubbornly on every miniscule piece of space ever conceived. Yesterday, after a long drive in the dying dusk of winter, trying to dodge surprisingly huge flakes shaped like little boats falling from the sky, I trudged out, cutting sharp black lines on the pavement with my snow shoes. The jacket rustled and ruffled in my ears. How can so many million little white wisps swim in insane silence? Are they laughing to each other as they cling to my eyelashes, slide under my collar or melt in my eyes?
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Sparkly, sprightly, icy harmony! Sprinkled everywhere, like the ground itself were one giant white tide. I can almost taste the sharp excitement of winter in each flake. Yesterday, I sat in my car watching a million flakes fly by, criss-cross, zig-zag, madly falling, flying, slipping, sliding! They landed on the windshield, waving to me in glee, winking and blinking in the morning sun before they melted into the smallest little ponds of water. Each flake drawn in the most wondrous shape, lines, angles, pointy edges, sharp and shiny little crystal clouds! Is it true that each snow flake is shaped different from the other? A zillion little reasons to be happy!

Parrot on the coffee tree

Oh! Green upon green!
Alive! Red upon trembling red!
Look! Over my head!

Hungry, fluttering
Shrill, caffeinated squawking
Like this tree has bled

Sure, tentative claws
Gripping tree-green with ripped red
Sudden and so rushed!

Flies away, leaving
Stolen tree and berries crushed,
My green and red gust.

Driving home in the bending rays of the October sun, sighing at silhouettes, stopping at crowded lights and looking up at large brick buildings, paying particular attention to the ornate lamppost standing sadly beautiful against dull orange trees, watching youngsters huddled in warm coats step slowly past bright window displays, notice a dog taking his hobbly old man for a walk, switch the radio station to the saddest song, roll down the windows to let in some of the cold air, think of nothing, see everything, feel nothing.
I celebrate bad days by turning into a beautifully shot movie in my head.

Isn't it surprising how we have romanticized even mundane things as bad days?

On pets and the lack of one:

There is a skunk that lives in our backyard. Well, I call it a skunk because I know it's a skunk. But then the husband, who saw it first, isn't completely sure it is one. He first proposed the idea of a possible possum. That was soon ruled out because of the large white stripe on the back of the furry little thing. So it became a plausible possum. Then he said it's a giant squirrel. But there's a white stripe, remember? It's a skunk, says me. We hold off the discussion until the next sighting.

He saw it again, and called out to me so I could see a beaver walking in our backyard. Does it have large front teeth? No. So it's a skunk, I said. Oh, then it's probably the neighbor's cat that fell in a can of paint. Nope, said I, as the two of us stood gingerly on the first wooden step leading to our backyard, excited, and quietly watching a fairly large blackish animal with a thick white stripe running from the tip of its nose to the end of its large bushy tail. It scampered about, nose buried in the grass, oblivious to two curious humans watching it. Yup, skunk for sure, says me. Hm...says he.

And then the other day the back yard started smelling. You think it's the skunk? says I. Or hey, maybe it’s a Tasmanian devil!
Well, considering the time we've spent thinking about it and the names we've called it, I'd say we have a pet skunk!

Viscous, golden darkness slithered under the door and into the house while the sun was setting. Warmth slid out and spread into the dying dusk. Silence of the most bitter taste sat heavy in the room, quietly waiting, watching for a tender moment.

As night came on, she cried like a handful of simmering coals had settled at the bottom of her heart. She looked at the silence through her blurry eyes and wished it away. But as with wishes, they only made the bitterness stronger.

Night came on, inkly blue, distant and restless. Morning followed, shimmery white, tired and uncomfortable.