Pond Fish

In the early minutes of this blog entry, hot, humid air presses down on the forest.  Thoughts are transparent, no dominating theme flooding the neurochemical nooks.

A few days left in the search for people who did not declare their existence for the decennial count.

Soon, I will detach my personality from the local census crew and float free again.

Swimming in the wet-weather channel between ponds.  Sometimes becoming a big fish and sometimes anonymously hidden in shallow pool schools.

Not a single bird in this forest is covered with green feathers.

The insect world full of busy bodies.

All the thoughts not written down like sunlight I cannot see until it reflects off a surface in many directions, including toward me.

I am a wandering bard, telling the story of my life as reflected by the lives of those around me.

Can you see clouds of carbon dioxide around people's mouths?  Can you see oxygen hanging over treetops?

I have no other story to tell because those of you around me are the only lives I know in the moment.

I exist because you exist.

Humbly thankful that you recognise me in the moments of your lives.

Simple courtesy.

These words are intended for my species' consumption but I speak to all of you in the moments we encounter one another, animal, plant, thing or idea.

Pardon me a moment.  A chipmunk wants to be fed.  A bumblebee and a dragonfly stop by to check me out.

When we populate other planets, what will occupy our spare time?  What kinds of companions will replace our domesticated animals?

A night creature dug up a tomato plant last night, triggering me to get some chili powder and a scoop of cat litter to sprinkle around the plant [not too close] and keep the night creature away (will work until the next big rain).

If this moment is like other people's moments on Earth, it will be like other people's moments elsewhere - the expected moments we don't know exactly when to expect.

The shadows of buzzards moving up and down in circles through the trees, their bodies out of sight somewhere overhead.

Nesting and spawning seasons are over.  The search for mates changes over to the search for baby food, with fewer territorial disputes taking place in the woods and rivers.  Young hatchlings will emerge soon, attracting predators, instilling a sense of mortality in the surviving juveniles who keep one eye looking around while they play.

Another yearly cycle to which I'm barely attached.

Can I sit here every day, practice writing for a while, read a bit more, eat and exercise and repeat?

Knowing unexpected moments, like big fish and small fish in a pond encountering one another, neither one predator or prey, will expectedly surprise me, never a completely dull moment on this planet when one knows how to change one's perspective?

I stopped feeding the chickadees and cardinals.  Although they begged from me for a while, they've switched over to a diet of real wild food in the forest again.  Adaptation in action.

This universe is about your participation in it.  I just happen to be here happily writing about it.

Writing is not who I am, it's what I sometimes do to celebrate being here with you.  Otherwise, we're living in the unrecorded moment together.  Either way, you're the most important person in the universe.