1. Early morning; a black beetle is on its back in the shiny white free-standing bathtub. I offer it the pad of my index finger; after nervous faltering it climbs on board. I give it a ride up to the pot of grape ivy, near the skylight; it disappears over the rim.
2. The rain has stopped but the day is still blustery and cold. Walking to the post office, I notice drowned worms on the sidewalk - one of the more unfortunate signs of spring. In front of me, a larger worm, covered with grit, is trying to head across the sidewalk and into the road. I go past, turn around, pick it up and set it down in the wet grass. This action is immediately followed by a memory of how many worms I put on fishhooks as a child.
3. I notice that the river is very high.
4. Across the bank, sirens. An white ambulance with red lights flashing heads across the bridge, toward the village.
5. Three sleek crows land, cawing, in the bare sycamore saplings on the river's edge. One crow has a beakful of leaves. All around the birds hang last fall's sycamore fruits on their long stems, like Christmas balls, or dangly earrings from the 60s.
6. When I come out of the post office, the ambulance is above me on a dead-end street. I used to know the people who lived in that house. The village is silent now: no siren, no crows.
7. In front of the tenement on the corner, the green leaves of the young maple trees are curled in swollen buds, like fists.
2. The rain has stopped but the day is still blustery and cold. Walking to the post office, I notice drowned worms on the sidewalk - one of the more unfortunate signs of spring. In front of me, a larger worm, covered with grit, is trying to head across the sidewalk and into the road. I go past, turn around, pick it up and set it down in the wet grass. This action is immediately followed by a memory of how many worms I put on fishhooks as a child.
3. I notice that the river is very high.
4. Across the bank, sirens. An white ambulance with red lights flashing heads across the bridge, toward the village.
5. Three sleek crows land, cawing, in the bare sycamore saplings on the river's edge. One crow has a beakful of leaves. All around the birds hang last fall's sycamore fruits on their long stems, like Christmas balls, or dangly earrings from the 60s.
6. When I come out of the post office, the ambulance is above me on a dead-end street. I used to know the people who lived in that house. The village is silent now: no siren, no crows.
7. In front of the tenement on the corner, the green leaves of the young maple trees are curled in swollen buds, like fists.
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