I forgot about the wind here up until this morning when I was walking and thinking of you and the sun revealed itself in a compelling way to my eyes. It was orange and heavy with atmospheric dust and across the lake the snap-hooks fastened to the flagpole banged incessantly against the aluminum. They clanged (clung), they did, and their tautophony reminded me of tired thirsty kings in Tartarus who roll big rocks and can’t alleviate their thirst.
The rest of the day and every day all day I hear rattling bugs like birds dried to skeletons and sound boxes, and I remember how miraculously quiet it is in November when hearts stop and everything crystallizes. I choose to believe it's kind of God to kill his insects like he does with the cold-- freezing being one of the nicest ways to die.
Speaking of birds, I get bothered when I think about the way you called her your heron. The only bird I’ve ever been is Isis in 5th grade, when I made myself wings from bed sheets and glued feathers for a collaborative project on Egypt. Someone else’s mother did my makeup and made me a necklace out of felt and plastic jewels and I thought I was as beautiful as Cleopatra: the one with no hair on her knuckles.
The other sound I hear a lot is the generator across the street which is really just a big mechanical cricket on the college’s engineering building. There they teach my friend nathaniel that objects only work one way with one intended purpose, and they don’t work backward. You can’t push a rope, he tells me, and he pops his ear with the knuckle of his forefinger. I understand that it’s beside the point, but if you dipped the rope in water and froze it, I think you could push it.
Anyway, I hope you aren’t kept awake by the sound of insects more consistent than obsession. Last week I stayed up reading about Isis and her lover Osiris who was cut up in 14 pieces and thrown into the river. She spent along time trying to find him. I like to imagine her waist deep, sifting through reeds and silt beds, lunging at his pieces flowing further down the current.
