an image diary

"And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be? ... You'd be nowhere. Why, you're only a sort of thing in his dream! If that there King was to wake you'd go out -- bang! -- just like a candle!"

"Hush! You'll be waking him, I'm afraid, if you make so much noise."

"Well it's no use your talking about waking him when you're only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you're not real."

Friday, December 31, 2004

New Year's Eve

Am sick.

My brother was so sick in Del Rio that his ears and throat swelled up with infection. He had two earaches and couldn't talk and couldn't hear and his eyes were red and closed. I hardly saw him while I was there though he lives next door to my mother. I saw him enough to catch his virus.

We all did.


*****

My brother said Romulus is a wolf cat. A witch cat. A familiar. "He looks just like a wolf." The gray wolf the ranchers shoot at night is endangered, nearly extinct. A few years ago, after breeding the animal successfully in captivity, it was reintroduced to southern and central Arizona. It slaughters in packs the beef herds and doesn't eat all it kills. I tell Chris: look out: Romulus bites.

*****

Darren's father died last Tuesday, the day I spent driving to Del Rio. I know because Jim kept me company on the road when the cell came back up and he called Vicky to find out what happened. No word from Darren as yet; he sleeps when I wake, I wake when he sleeps, but I am vigilant with you, friend.


*****


Elly's mother is dying of cancer. He sends pictures of his son sleeping with his dog. His son is the age of my students.


*****

I am back in Galesburg. Remind me to tell about the fog.


"and what is the use of a book...without pictures or conversations?"


[contact me: ghostwordeffigy@yahoo.com]

what o'clock it is

CURRENT MOON

live flowers