Gone

98 degrees at four o'clock, and a warm night ahead. With darkness the cicadas will begin buzzing. This is no place to be this time of year. It's not much of a place to be any time of year anymore. It grows more suburban by the day. The orchard is being pulled out and is to become a park. There will be much coming and going, and the rodents will be driven out so there will be none for the feral cats to hunt. Every time I look outdoors and see the spread of landscaped yards along the block I wish to be somewhere else.

I would like to be somewhere nearer the ocean, but it would be too costly. Perhaps I'm stuck in this place. Too bad. It wasn't so bad when it was more rustic and full of old people, but now it is all commuters and lawns and dogs who bark at every raccoon and skunk and squirrel— and those wild creatures will soon be gone as well, I suspect. I don't recall when I last saw a deer, but it seems months. I am truly tired of this place. It is not mine.


( Sunday Verse )