January 25, 2010, 21:48

I went by the old mansion. There was a sign on the gate “BEWARE THE BULL”. I peeked over the fence and there he was placidly chewing grass. Miranda was draped over his back asleep, her delicate pale arms hanging down over the barrel curve of his massive ribs.
“Well, they’re getting along pretty well now,” I chuckled.

I still did not want to test the bull’s good nature. So I headed home. Morris the minah bird was on my porch repeating some lines from Rimbaud in French. I knew they were lines from Rimbaud because that is the only poet he knows by heart.
“Hello Morris,” I said as I opened my door.
“Hello to you too,” he croaked as he flew over my shoulder into my dim workshop room. “And where have you been so long away, so long away.”
“I took a walk in the wild and then to Dudley’s for the night.”
“Oh! Dudley eh?” Morris made a little throaty chortle as he perched on the standing elephant head lamp. I pulled the trunk and the tusks glowed whitely.
“I haven’t seen you for a while, Morris. Where have you been hiding yourself.”
“I flew out to the old highway by the sea. By the way Leela says hi or high, I am not sure which.”
“Either one will do. Are you hungry or just looking for a safe place to rest.”
“I can always find a bit of seed or a few tasty grubs, but yours is the best place to rest. I always say that. Always.” Morris finished with a shrill squawk  and settled his head down between his shoulders so that his bright yellow ear patch looked like a sun setting over a black hill.
“We can talk more later.” I said as I went to my work bench to see what I could get busy with. I thought of Leela. There was that time when I was working up in the valley just over the ridge from her place on the ocean highway. There were dogs everywhere. I was replanting the forest on the ridge. Back then I could fly, too, and I flew over the hilly ground dropping seed and cones on the barren green mat. I wanted to ask Morris how the forest was growing. It had been a while so maybe there were trees and undergrowth.
I thought about a, time I came into to her tiny house when she had put in the new white tile even in the bed room. It was all pretty much one room broken into two where the floor just slanted up all of a sudden, and you were in the bedroom. They were large rooms but that was the whole place. Bright yellow kitchen: Pink plushy bedroom which was mostly bed. She was almost always in the bed reading when I came in. She would put her book down, and we would talk about my work and what she was reading and so many other things. I don’t really remember how this all got started or how we met, but there we were in that little house on the coast talking into the night about anything that came into our heads. I wonder why I left that job and the ocean. I just can’t seem to think of any good reasons why I am not still there. Oh, well things change in subtle ways. We shift to other paths that lead us into other places and other friends. I will have some questions for Morris when he wakes up.