Little Things

Yesterday on my way to Turbesi Park I passed a green lampshade on the sidewalk. Today it was a crushed green lampshade in the same spot. I passed the house with the Husky and noticed they still have two Hawaiian shirts hanging on the line. They have hung out through a few rainstorms. It's funny the little things you notice going around the same streets repeatedly. The folks down at the corner harvested all of their tomato plants and in their place is a pile of firewood split and ready for burning. I saw one of their chickens out loose the other day - a white one poking in the bushes of the neighbor's yard.

Yesterday I saw Brady the chocolate Lab out of his yard, sleeping under a big red Lexus SUV parked on the street. I had never seen him out of his yard before, and I couldn't bear the thought of him getting hurt or accidentally run over by the Lexus. So I stood thinking for a few minutes and then turned back and went to the house and knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked on the window. Then I remembered the family next door was good friends with this family so I rang their bell. When the man came to the door, I told him I had noticed Brady sleeping under the big red car. The neighbor understood the concern and corralled Brady back into the yard, got his electric collar from the owner, and slipped it onto Brady's neck. I felt much better.

I love to look. Observing is its own poetry. When I was a child I would look at everything, but without comprehension. It was a game, like thinking my eyes could land on a spot that had never been seen before. Maybe that could be true after a snowfall, but now I see meaning, story, everywhere I look in my busy neighborhood.