Animated

Waiting for that well-known fever, listening to the dogs bay the moon west, lying on the grass to watch Orion leave the sky: passing the night. The night breeze has veered about, bringing southern airs warmed by the radiant soil of orchards coming into bloom. The cats are abroad, seeking prey coaxed to the surface by this new gentleness which wraps the woods, and piercing cries reveal the nighthawk's flight. A scuffling in the brush might be some rodent's untimely end, but the chorus of frogs does not falter in its song. All the darkness has come alive, and cares nothing for what passes in its deepest corners. Bursts of pollen drift unseen as the vegetable world procreates. I am in the midst of an orgy and a feast, a bystander at profligate revels, ignored and irrelevant. I listen to the trees hum, and continue to wait.

Getting the Bird

Something very odd just happened. Shortly after nightfall, I heard a fluttering noise at my window. I looked up and saw what appeared to be a huge moth splayed against the screen. It flapped about, as though attempting to enter the brightly lit room. On closer inspection, the creature turned out to be not a moth, but a small bird, with a wingspan of about five inches. I shone a flashlight on it, but it was not frightened off either by the light or by my presence a few inches away. It continued to flutter against the screen or the window, occasionally alighting for a moment on the narrow outside ledge and peering into the room. It did not appear to be injured in any way -- merely obsessed with coming into the house. Perhaps it is mentally unsound. I closed the window shade for a while, expecting it to leave, and the noise did stop, but upon opening the shade a few minutes later, the bird was still there. A second and longer closing of the shade seems to have done the trick. The bird has now departed, though I can't be sure it won't return. I suppose I'll never know why it was so eager to enter the house. At least the cats weren't in here. Had either of them seen that bird, they would have been attempting to leap onto the windowsill to get at it.

The temperature rose again today, and we all know what that means to Sluggo. I must rush. Last night, I finally uploaded the additional five user icons to which paid users have been entitled for a few months now. The one I'm using on this post is Edward Hopper's painting "Summer Evening." I figured that if I didn't get this task done before the weather gets too hot, I'd never get the chance. Time to read, now, before Sluggo gets overheated and has a digital aneurysm.