In small rooms / corrupt melodies / take twisted shape / on sunny Saturdays.

There is dark & grainy video footage of Halloween party, of band with nun drummer and accompanying bellydancer. There is spring breeze with birdsong entering through open door. There is mind wandering up, up & away - under bright sky, up hill to old saw mill which now sells books. In a narrow room shelved with novels, there is a thin hardback published by Pantheon. Choppy paragraphs & wide spaces attract. A first edition with a worn dustjacket, $6. Coffee, register, and then, sun-warmed silver granite slab perched on steep ledge overlooking snow-capped rocks and running stream.

A stream best approached via rope-swing circa '93 at summer green gatherings happening somewhere nearby, at Chris's, the farmer extraordinaire. There were evenings at big brown house with winding stairs & massive crackling fireplace - cookies & absynthe - and your clothes always smelled smokey the next day. Whatever happend to it all?

I stare at the cover, and from the pale beige jacket, dark eyes burn - it is such an unlikely title, but I am in a great hurry to read and search through the words - to capture any light, to reveal any detail in the veiled and unresolved image that remains so everpresent - that continually draws me in, always. I read quickly at a pace matching that of the rushing stream below - rapid and swelled by snow melt. A page per minute, and in less than an hour and a half, I'm done. Mind wandering becomes mind wondering - about the things she's seen, the things she knows and the things she keeps hidden - and what makes her smile. It's nearing 4 and already it seems less bright.