Written sketch: cat, lover, guitar

There is a stuck bit.
Uncorking.......

Cat pouncing on her prey of air, shadow and string.

The lover whistles Star Wars and asks,
"Whatcha writins?"
addresses the cat, then removes his guitar from its case and sits.

Tuning and tinkering. Nimble fingers remember rhythms and patterns
like a young boy calling his dog out to play fetch.
It's a game they both know quite well
boy, ball and dog
fingers, strings and vibrations.
When he sits in the corner, strumming, what a beautiful dance of plunking,
strumming, pressing, face scrunching,
head tilted down and slightly to one side
encouraging the notes to come forward like shy little children,
ever so gently, ever so persistently.
There's a luxurious, honeyed serenity in his expression,
a silent joy.
The beauty of concentration wrapped delicately in each of his movements.

Squack!
Squeak!
'barassed, looking over now and again at this spy.

He stops playing.



Notes
ebb
and
flow.
And again they waSH over me.

He switches guitars and addresses the cat a second time.
Again tUnInG
again  f l o w i n g  notes.

His left pinky curls in and out ever so slightly about the air
while the other fingers press down on the strings, so rapidly
as to land in a blur.

He moves the capo up and down the neck
slipping from one song into the next,
yawns
protests at my request for further playing
but hugs in his guitar in for one final tune.

"What's happening?
Whatcha doin' over there?"

Vanishing Act

Sandy footsteps stolen by gusts of wind,
laughing away any physical remnants of
our walk in the canyon.
Does the cold granite remember the warmth of me?
Or the flittering tendrils of butterfly feet
that alighted upon it?

Heaving breaths and footfalls later,
the thrasher zigzagged among boulders and cholla,
dancing along the threads of its harmonic web;
ducking, perching, puffing, calling out,
frozen and piercing with its amber eye,
then off again.

                                                 Tracing backward:
Before slip-sliding down gravel paths
and climbing out from the hills' shadow,
whispers of water seduced my parched ears.
Evidence of her sweetness
in the smooth grooves and dry canals,
the force of her reduced to
a few damp patches of earth and one trickling puddle.
She vanished;
a hint of willow green,
sweet nectar for the mourning cloak...

...transient desert Mother.

Gratitude contd.

Words of the Elders

first a chink in the dam,

eroded, one drop at a time,

love's waters slowly smooth away the rough edges;

silty earthen nectar pours out,

coloring, mixing, swirling, sloshing, settling,

until the river flows a deep, muddy red.

Pema, Robert, Larry, Margaret, Sylvia, (elders)... 

thank you for your guiding words, spoken from the heart.

May they be among the drops that start the flood

of gratitude, love, wisdom and freedom.