lulu is wishing on the theological fountain. i say soon, lulu, soon, the water will flow. the sound of the words is soothing, i think, but she is waiting and she does not understand the theology of soon.

comet is a dear empath and a wild, sensitive boy. he's always in motion and i'm glad to see him held still in a photograph with me. he takes care of the emotions of those of us lucky to love and care for him and his partner, lucky hilde. when the dog is lucky we are lucky. we are the dogs of love and we are the dogs of luck, we are lucky people, and we are lucky, lucky dogs.

change is never done.  -r.

 the news cycle is round the clock.

the minute and hour hands spin.
but the center round which they spin is still.

we have a golden opportunity to stop war and make peace.

america's real good at regime change, gnome sane. one way or the other one they get the job done. well, not so good really, they just create bloody mayhem, crush them underfoot. changing governments is a proud and american tradition and a helluva business to boot.

good morning, trees. i'll be there soon. four creatures are in the bed now, three asleep. my itch of last night is gone. i think i'm still healed and the gremlins are tamed or left of their own recognizance. sometimes in the night you start thinking things. maybe if you get some sleep things dissolve in dreams.

what if it starts again, what if it never stops starting again. what if thinking starts it, what if it can't be stopped thinking it may start again, what if the itch is permanent as skin, as change, as ever, the same. what if the itch is in the brain what if the itch is hope that feeds on anxiety and change is never done.

obomba wants to take this too.

there was a kind of arc to the day. did you feel it? it started like a life of ease, then an accumulation, then a more tired ease. i felt myself connecting, sort of implicitly, i thought i would miss having mister here, but i held him a lot and picked him up a couple times. i felt the invisible connective tissue i sometimes feel, meshing the air, stepping and feeling the texture of the ground in my new supple-skin feet. i saw my old therapist and she came to greet mister and me, and i felt a warmth between us, and no shame for having left that room.

d'you see those girls, mister?
idle know if he's being cool and casual, or if he's too blind to see.

i feed lulu a sycamore seed. she ate some of susannah's toys yesterday. red and blue plastic poop today. it didn't make purple.

The overarching concern of Preservation Chicago and many other advocacy groups is the level of influence by privately held organizations and the lack of substantive community involvement in each of these three initiatives: the Obama Foundation, a newly-established non-profit called the Chicago Parks Golf Alliance, and Project 120. These non-profits are governed by their respective boards of directors and not accountable to the citizens of Chicago as are our governmental agencies, such as the Chicago Park District. The privatization of parkland is a concern across the city, including along the lakefront and in neighborhood parks for private events. The increased involvement of private groups in the management of public parkland is of concern, and sometimes may not be in the best interests of the general public. This includes the preservation of historic landscapes and structures which can, without oversight, be significantly compromised. 

but they still call it a library.

i lay on my back taking pictures of the trees while mister munched on twigs and a young dog zoomed around us twice and mister barked and carried on eating twigs and all was quiet it seemed after all that happening.

stars of track and field we are.

love this sycamore because it's lovely. and because it's a tree like all old trees, of memory.
when i was more or less nine there was a little patch of earth left between subdivisions and strip mall. i don't know why they called it a strip mall, there was no main strip, just a dusty country road, and no strip club. but there was this fertile patch where my imagination grew, and there was a great big old dead sycamore laying across the creek and an old iron railroad bridge, the rails gone. i took the rusty iron sign off of it. that too is long gone. the memory is still fresh. i can still feel the bark, and the rusty skeleton bridge on my fingertips.

lulu goes bonkers for astroturf.

:this strange passion.

grim man in tunnel.

 mister following grim man in tunnel.

i find it all so exceedingly strange, this existence, every one of us existing all at one time, even the dead are light still traveling, so familiar, light that doesn't die, that goes and goes on in dreams, in deep space, that everything is all together, happening, to be, just by chance, i find utterly remarkable, so very strange, and dramatic, celestial and intimate, it makes me want to cry for everything that is.

before you exists, 
you exist not, 
and after you exist,
you exist no more, 
but you know now you exist and you will have your existence, 
and you will never have not existed anymore.

comet and hilde. ark of the brown couch. window bay. febuary 27, 2019.