CobaltSkink, a small blue-tailed lizard

Monday, March 20, 2006 Perception I clocked out from work earlier today, to walk to the Emory post office and get a book of stamps so I could mail some bills. As I passed by one of the buildings on the quad a woman emerged, descend- ing the steps, cell phone glued to her ear. I heard her say, with fierceness, "choke the SHIT out of him...". I wandered on, Doppler shift in effect, whatever she said after that trailing away into nothingness relative to me. At the post office I bought the stamps with a $20 bill. The woman behind the counter handed me my change, which included a new $10 bill, and commented cheerfully, that I was getting one of the new ten dollar bills. I remarked that I thought it was pretty. I don't know why our exchange seemed so pleasant but her smile and our few words added to my already good mood. I walked on to the food court, bought some greens to bring back to work to eat, but took a longer way back to ...

Tuesday, June 21, 2005 long ago now Once, long ago, on Sunday afternoon I had time to work in my garden under blue skies, in golden light, with a breeze for company. In my garden I made a home for two lilies of the tiger sort and one named Atlanta Moonlight. There were rooms enough in my garden for globe amaranth and the irresistable-to-butterflies pentas; for elegant yarrow and three artemesias which took up lodgings among my canna lilies. I looked for a good place for the brown-eyed susans and when I found it, I pushed my shovel into the mulch, turned it aside, discovered a cache of small, white eggs, maybe as many as fifteen of them. The eggs were small, no more than a half inch each. I reached for one and expected its shell to be hard the way a bird's egg would be. Instead I was surprised to find it felt soft and cool and tender. I worked quickly to move the scattered eggs back together and covered them once more with mulch, though not as well, no doubt, as their momma...