The Dog Stars

That is what we are, what we do: nose a net, push push, a net that never exists. The knots in the mesh as strong as our own believing. Our own fears.

Waiting for your real life to begin. Maybe the most real thing the end. To realize that when it’s too late.

underneath the big stillness like a score is the roaring of the cataract of everything being and being torn away.

The sun overwhelming eyelids, pouring down like heavy water. If there is nothing else there is this: to be inundated, consumed.

The love is the creek bed and the pain fills it. Fills it every day with tears.

We listen to wind high, water low.

We’ll keep track of this little rill. Of tying on fresh tippet and the tufty fly, and we’ll blow on it for luck. Of this cast and the next and if we ourselves are lucky it will add up to nightfall.

To multiply the years and divide by the desire to live is a kind of false accounting.

The night is without weight: the dark weightless now in its immanent passing like a deer about to bolt. The morning light a thought that is just occurring. Still and quiet, high stars, no wind.