Wednesday 8:50am

Signs of prematurity - green pine cones, green acorns. The ants' nest disturbed and the frenzy to save the eggs.

Things dropping - the acorn on the car hood, the leaf on my head, the kissing birds dropping down right before me and splitting apart even with my heart, like curtains opening.

Pairs of things - the birds and their twitter, the pair of wicker chairs at the curb, two steps on the child's step stool set out for collection and its pair of fairy stickers, two bricks stacked one on the other in the grass. The two black men in red t-shirts who crossed my path at two different points. The woman in the fuschia tank and shoes walking her little black dog, seeing her once from a distance, then in my circle, crossing her path. She was walking alone and at the same time, talking on her phone and so accompanied.

Changes & Shortcuts - how the man stepping in front of me turned my path aside, shortening my route because it felt safer to do that than to descend into that backroad privacy behind him, breathing heavy. The new tenants of the house that was for sale, taking the morning on their back porch. The barking of their white dog. The fizzing sound of whatever they're doing to silence him.