FIVE: A RAVINE IS A WORLD

And they stopped here or there. Sometimes they had a bit of water. It didn’t take much for them to satisfy their thirst. As for satiation, they were not food motivated and only ate as much as they needed. God. What a creation. Where, I wondered sometimes, did they come from? Black and brown the one, and the other grey and white. They dash around. What will the first snowfall look like? Maybe it stays away so long so we can forget and then renew some faith. What would the places look like at night, with the moon as the only light to show the way? The cities sleep save for a few vehicles. Even the haughty and prideful ones have to rest. Then, the rabbit or the fox might go across those places. Once I saw a family of foxes come right up to the beginnings of the ravines where the suburban grates caught the rainwater, the effluent run-off from storms. They paused and looked at me, a friend, and the leader, perhaps the mother, did an energy reading. Fine. They looked around some. Then receded into the night again. I know the way. It’s where the trees used to be small and the garter snakes came out in the rain, disturbed. They bit that guy once, no? Where is he now? He was a good sort. So many things happened in and around there. Comic trading. The yellow police cars getting the teenagers to dump out their beer. But it was the storms that were the thing. I watched them from the window where the phantom had come in once for help. Black wrought iron gates, purple plum trees and a sour cherry tree. It’s all still there, it’s all still standing. But I don’t know what it is like there when a heavy storm announces itself to the environs. No, it’s all just memories. When the months where rain is allowed go away, the snow must blanket, nestle, and keep the grounds in a certain glow. Each branch and every feral shrub. All the small bridges and the old buildings up the way. Their rooftops watch the firmament let its story-poem of white come to marry everything. And the foxes…the foxes must see and hear the astute and heavy silence of all of that. Yes the foxes know all about the middle of wintry nights.