Various Asters Maybe, But Definitely Not Dodder

September 13, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  Moi left early with Ezra for NYC, took Mway out and fed her long before I got up.  The little work I can do today I can postpone till tomorrow, so I spent most of the morning on preparatory work for my night and weekend job, taking advantage of Moi being out of the house to work as uninhibitably as I pleased – I almost forgot to let the chickens out as Moi said I would need to do.  Mway spent much of the morning on the front porch, looking around I guess.  Yesterday morning Moi pointed out the window to me Squeak and Mway outside hunting together along the perimeter of the yard, Squeak highstepping cautiously in the weeds, Mway following right behind, whether motherly, opportunistically, or otherwise I don’t know.  Mway has come inside and is napping in Moi’s room, following Moi’s custom even without her around.  I’ve just come back from doing some errands.  Moi, expected back today, hasn’t come home yet, and I think I might as well go and read and perhaps nap too.  As so often happens when I read these days my eyes saccade for a page or two, then on the third page, begin to grow heavy.  I strain to follow the words of the next sentence “There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of –,” when suddenly, without me quite knowing how or when, I’m gone, lost in the land of No Sense.  I wake up suddenly, my book flopped on my chest, its pages squished together.  I flip through them to find my place, resume for another paragraph or two, battling against the growing gravity under my lids to make it as far as “I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in --,” when again I go unconscious.  But then when I put a marker in the book, lay it down at my side, and flip over on my other side to actually try to sleep, so often the blackness under my lids blooms into brightness and I just lie there thinking until I’m thinking about nothing except that I’m lying there thinking.  I’m back up now, Moi’s still not home, it’s 4:51 and seems like a good time to take Mway for a walk.

State of the Path:  During brunch, while leafing through Audubon, I come upon dodder, a “parasitic vine,” which I get in my head might be what the weird coral-like vine down by the creek is, so my focus is to look at that.  The weather couldn’t be finer, below room temperature with a slight breeze (usually I hate September weather, when summer resists leaving, but this September so far has been crisp and clear), the cicadas going at a soft hum.  On the side path, I come upon a white wildflower vine growing over some goldenrod that I think for a moment might be the same vine I’m thinking is dodder down by the creek.  But I reread about dodder, see that it has bell-shaped flowers, and this has rounded clusters something like the white “smartweed” in bug land.  When I step into the mass of goldenrod, where the sun’s shining down hard, I suddenly see the honey bees again; their low drone reminds me of the moans in an Alzheimer’s ward.  Moi’s smartweed flowers haven’t gotten any longer, but their stems are still hairy and their leaves still form sheathes around the petioles.  Along the creek, I see what might be, I decide after leafing through Auduon, either small-flowered white aster or calico aster – take your pick.  The lavender aster at the swale and in the feed channel, where it’s really moving along well now, I decide, for the time being, is either New York aster or New England aster.  I run into some of the weird coral-like vine down in the swale, which has what looks like greenish white berries on it and which, although definitely parasitic, is just as definitely not dodder.  When I brush past the Russian olives (and I can’t remember now – is this what I finally determined what these bushes are?), I’m startled to see they have red berries.  Past the ridge, in the weedy area below the strawberry patch, the cicadas suddenly grow louder and pretty soon I realize I’m sputtering my lips at bugs flying in my face.

State of the Creek:  Pretty much the same as yesterday, but I forget to look closely at it, as I’m looking for the dodder that never materializes.  I do take notice that the leaves in the rock bed, which were damp yesterday, look crinkly and dry again; and coming back from my errands earlier, and driving through several puddles, I thought to myself there’s probably more water in the driveway than in the creek these days.

The Fetch:  I don’t know what it is but again Mway’s barking sounds so loud and her spinning’s so intense that at one point when I’m leaning over to pick up the stick I move my head away and mutter “Jesus Christ, Mwayla.”