The past year we’ve had access to a small fenced area. Lily meets other dogs here, and people. More importantly she and I have established a daily practice of ball in this quasi-park. I throw and she chases after then returns it to me. We are a small machine.
This little yard is handy, it’s chief virtue. Open fields work better because a ball launcher allows Lily to utilize fully her rocketry. At the dog yard she has to brake before getting close to full speed. But it is nearby and give her that moment of excited breath.
If by chance other dogs or people enter, they become invisible to Lily. The ball absorbs her full attention. The other dogs may regard the ball as an entertainment and try to join in. Their effort always scales as half-hearted compared to Lily’s. We’re talking border collie bloodline.
Lily is almost always ready to meet the next throw. I say almost because she will at need just flop to the ground for a breather. Were I to throw just then she would spring to the chase but I respect the urge to rest. Breath is time, time is ours.
So this morning shines after yesterday’s cloudy chill. Rain came thru during the night and now clouds are gone. The birds have uncovered their voices.
So Jack Kerouac shows up. I didn’t know he could fly but I am not surprised. To him, a minute actually is a minute, a fetching, a rood of time. The minute stretches to beginnings and fills oceans. He sees verbs every minute. He lived in this land as land. Steps from here you could find a marking for his mortal remains. He is not really there. Why should he be: he can fly.
Lily awaits my next throw. The earth has tilted its spin into spring. I give her a moment to rest, catch her breath, not the ball. Nothing is so mortal than the idea of mortality. I say ‘Let’s walk’ and Lily drops the ball and goes to the gate. I closed it loosely when we arrived not for fear that she’ll run away, only to contain the ball. The ball is the center. Jack sits casually in that tree there, one of two in the little yard.
Jack notices things and the things are there. Then he notices other things because the moment treats him to that and not otherwise. Same with Lily, as it happens.
Sometimes turkeys gather almost near. The Age of Dinosaurs never left. Revision happens later when the moments show the gleam of something new, like an idea.
Lily stops and notices. A car drives by. Sometimes buses and trucks jostle the moment with the valour of noise. This worries Lily. The mechanic roar sounds so purposeful, like an initiation. Jack makes no sound, birds give us their voicings.
Jack takes the center at its word. By word I mean collective impending. I guess he wrote in a mean scribble. I know that can feel like light trance. Neal Cassidy opened things forever for a while and Jack carefully took note, even in carelessness. I wonder if Neal’s body was found, or could he become whatever.
Jack is over there on that rooftop now. A crow sometimes perches there as lookout while other crows take to the ground across the street and do, what crows do. Lily notices crows when they caw and cry. A hawk or an instigation of crows flies overhead and Lily watches, as do I.
The snow has gone. A line around here marks the boundary of Lowell and Chelmsford. The mercantile eye can see that line but it remains blurry to most of us. The line inhabits institution, best viewed on a map or legal document.
Chelmsford was incorporated in 1655. Later, Industrial Revolution. In the 1820s the farmland of East Chelmsford was incorporated as what became the City of Lowell. Mills and mill work abounded beside the Merrimack River.
A diverse and at least initially hopeful population grew. Rubber balls of some fetching description became inscribed in people’s minds. American ideas grew into American ideas. That is, the push became the idea of progressive intention. King Phillips’ war, right here.
I think Jack went off to the covert of trees where the turkeys gather. After Lily drops that ball as I mentioned, which I pocket, we move on. Moving on one moment at a time is about the sum. The same changeless moment has changed again.
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