T.

Today the sunrise shone directly into my treehouse
bedroom, welcoming me back to Pacific Standard Time.
Good morning North America. I was soon thereafter
visited by Flip the cat, who doesn't belong to me
but belongs to Reilly and Nelson. Flip occasionally
blesses me with his faint affections. I must feel
beneath his chin to detect a purr.

I have noticed that in my absence
many spiders have moved into my house.
Perhaps I should charge them rent?
The boys seem unaffected by their presence.

A bird is pecking on my eaves -- a starling,
a flicker? I just managed to spot him/her
on the roof -- a Stellar's jay, attempting to crack
a pilfered hazelnut....pilfered from my hazelnut tree.
In the Burren (in Ireland) Paul and I drove through
a hazelnut forest, wild, boggy, rocky, blustery. I wanted to
build a hut and live there unto eternity. All the colors
were richly suffused -- rusty golds and golden greens.
It would rain in great sopping gusts, then the sun would
break through, and the landscape would shimmer with light.

My secret backyard garden has grown lush and junglely
in the past two weeks, its own overabundant universe.

And now the crows harass the jays, and the cats gather
beneath the Douglas fir, hoping to harass the crows.
Pecking order. Food chain.

The Food Chain would be a good name for a grocery store.