Leaning from a window ledge I tried to find the patterns in passing traffic. People massed at crossings, waited on the changing of the signals. I only saw the distant tops of heads until I tipped too far and fell and rolled past stacks of empty windows. I waited for the flattened smack of paving stones. Instead, I found perspective, understood why humans grasp at straws. I let go and lived.

Dress shirts hanging in the dark slowly switch positions. They fade from blue to white and shuffle to the right in single file. A few enshrined in plastic seem to hold their places longer than the rest. Some social stature lets them stay while others disappear, returning in random order on the weekends. We look for patterns in life and fail to note simple circles of truth that show us where we've been and where we're going. We overlook the daily details of keys and coats and paperclips of cereal and stair steps and dress shirts. We're on our way to something bigger, but it's always out of reach. We want so much more and settle for less than satisfaction.

Small suburban home with spot of grass and pinch of flowers just beneath the window. Two cars crowd the drive. We think we seek simplicity with this in mind; happiness, contentment and a future filled with laughing family gatherings on the lawn and slow Sunday walks. But we've been there, and it was a long time ago. Now the house is bigger, kids are older, three cars replaced two. And we're still searching. For simplicity.

So many shirts and ties are talking dollars. National conference spawns corner conversations on economic forecasts, fluctuating markets, the work force. This is what it's like to be on top? I pictured sunshine, lazy sailing days, horseback hunts. These rooms have no windows, and processed air is cold.

Working, I forget to focus, think about a broken light and last night's dream. Someone's calling. I hear the phone's far-off ring, answer it mechanically as I've been trained with smiling voice and careful repetition of the facts, every piece confirmed and spelled and double-checked. And then, I stumble sleepily and pinch myself awake. It's cold in the early morning. I'm too easily tempted by drowsy, day-dreamed warmth.

Unconscious culture races from work to weekend and back. No time to think or ponder life. Instead, we swim with frantic strokes, focused on surviving each wave crest and sea swell. We strive for yachts and tropical island paradise, just beyond the horizon. Too many tire and sink when home's spurned shore is not so far behind. Why can't we see? We were meant to live on land.

Smokey glow of fog envelops sugar factory, blurs reality in darkened silence of almost-morning. Smokestacks poke through the mist, tower above fields of beets and a lone truck, headlights sputtering, engine fading as it drives away. Chill breezes promise new beginnings, make magical the simple scene of plain clay bricks and frozen earth viewed from a freeway overpass in winter.

The trash compacting truck comes to pick up garbage, Tuesdays. It's loud. I like to watch the gate compressing coffee cans, cardboard boxes, black bananas; loose fragments of the everyday crushed into manageable size and taken away. Real life's not so simple. I've tried condensing problems into smaller space, pushing down the thought that something's wrong, tuning out unwelcome words. It doesn't work because they thrive in harsh conditions.

Sometimes, I sit, staring at the fire, fail to notice time's passing. Manic tongues of flame lick away soft bark, melt marrow of severed limbs while I watch, astonished at soft speed, gentle rush of heat and light, so friendly. The power to kill's disarming, persuasive in its gift of warm camaraderie on a cold night. I must be wary.

I could spend so much time wondering what it means, a simple touch. Instead, I stood and walked away. I felt a soft, slow jolt, and yet, I disciplined my face to stoney forward stare and left.

Dark clouds foreshadow freezing rain. The firewood's stacked. I picked the ripe tomatoes, pricked wrist on rosebush, taking out the trash. Has winter come? Plush petunias nestled next to porch think it's just a passing phase. Two dandelions spread seedy fluff, decide it's better safe than sorry. As night's black mask descends, I peek once more from window and see my reflection.

Bills arrived today. Plastic windows crinkled as they fell through front door's mail slot. I placed the pile of envelopes on downstairs desk. It's work that's never done, this cycle of purchase and payment. Every month a new batch. I sat and slowly sifted through, postponed commencing, looking for a letter instead. No luck. It seems that only corporate correspondence counts. Every message commercialized for maximum return. What have we become?

A timid kitten hidden in the woodpile cries for milk. I fill a bowl, gently set it down outside the door. It seems so simple, yet he struggles, eyes me with suspicion while he drinks. I walk away, consider how our world became a place where gifts seem fraught with danger, generosity a liability. Full, the kitten runs toward the road and disappears. The young should have no need of fear.

Gasps of wind push clouds across the sky in a slow-motion race for blue hills on the horizon. Shadows pass over cottonwood tops and broken beams, rest on rusted scraps of tin. The roof is gone. The twisted pieces sprawl in the grass while a sprinkler clicks and clicks and clicks, always turning to the right. Autumn leaves leak green and soon, the snow will come.

A pad of paper, blank, waits for words, patient with my indecision. It sits, unthinkingly prepared for list or letter, sign or story, prose or poem. I stretch out pencil, praying for precision as it touches down and steps from line to line, linking thought with action, giving form to flights of fancy, setting down perceptions as soft drops of rain break on broken leaves outside my window.

Late at night, I listen to trains passing in the dark, each with its song of long lonely travel. Closed cars slip through empty intersections, lights flashing red in their wake. The almost-silent giants swim through black-shadowed city streets. Metal monsters of the deep surface under midnight's cloud-covered moon, and then, as dawn draws close, they disappear.

A frog outside my window jumps and knocks against the glass. I stare through screen, tempted to speak, wonder if a whisper's better suited, say nothing. He jumps again, and then, he slowly starts to climb; inserts his tiny legs in square wire mesh and pulls, straining for the top. He falls. He hits his head on window, jumps once more, then twice. Ten more times he tries. He stops and sits astride a leaf. He stares in silence as it rains.

I bought an ugly coat and wore it once with collar up. I walked the town with rain-resistant gloss reflecting porch lights, street lights, headlights, the light of a full moon. I searched the store front shadows, watched a stop sign on the job, jumped in dumpsters wondering where reason sleeps. Apparently, it has no nighttime hideout. It fades away at sunset, flees from strange, nocturnal superstition, waits for safety of daybreak.

Washing dishes, I find spaghetti-spotted bowl, spoon tipped with crust of jelly, shallow pool of milk in glass: corpses of last night's fast-finished feast. Suds spill over bowl and spoon and glass like snow at the start of winter covering all in soft, white simplicity. I break the bubbles, thrusting hands beneath. The dishes come to life, sing a tune of muffled chinks and clinks. Glass bumps bowl and spoon taps glass in clumsy, underwater dance. They cannot keep from making merry. This is new life.

Driving down the freeway, I take it slow. Fifty-five saves gas, gives time to savor fields of mint, fresh harvested. Others pass fast on left, craning necks, no smiles. Every face determined, set on forward motion. Some gesture, label me an obstacle to progress. Where are they going that requires such speed? I do not cause their stress. It is something within.

Sitting in a restaurant next to Shopko, I watch a lost french fry on the floor. Halfway in between two chairs, it lies so still. Nearby, a man in sleeveless t-shirt reads the paper, fly stuck on shoulder. He moves his arm, again, the fly remains. It won't be moved. Others unwrap burgers, sip, discuss the weather. Cars outside line up. The kitchen's filled with beepers, cold beef on a hot grill, the clink of coins in a cash drawer. I sit at a table, quietly communing with the lost potato and a fly. For just a moment, we three share an island of silence in a rushed, chaotic world.

I found a dead cat in the hay. The head, hidden, seemed smaller than it should. Stiff limbs stuck out. Afraid to touch, I prodded with a pitchfork, considered if the insides were exposed. I didn't look. Instead, my aunt took shovel, scraped the corpse away. Two horses, swishing tails, nickered from the shade below. A diesel rumbled past. In the distance, echoes of a dog and children laughing.

Two penguins wave goodbye. One white-capped bird stands next to sign that says, "I went to the emergency room today!" Is this a happy place? The yellow sticker shows no blood or broken arms; there are no bandages. Instead, both birds smile. I remember the time, waiting in a gray gloom, wondering when. There were no penguins.

Some screeching bug protests the falling rain while crickets, in the background, softly chant their standard song of up and down, across and back, a nearly spiritual litany of summer. Soon, it will pass, but they'll return next spring to sing the coming of their season.

Metal-minted butterfly, flight-frozen, stuck in time, just above the mantel, vulnerable against stark white walls. Its copper coat reflects the light of a bare bulb. Will it ever fly again? Will it dance in the breeze, suckle from center of slender flower, find shelter in secret mountain forest? How silly these thoughts seem, thinking about an aluminum bug, made in China, cheap decoration.

Sorting through boxes in the barn, I find old family photos, a stack of burlap bags, canning jars, carefully wrapped in roses and ferns, sprinkled with dusty straw. A swallow swoops through an open window, disappears in the darkened rafters. Computer carcass supports a tired broom, black handle resting on wires. Baskets and a banana box are neighbors to a lonely, red boot. It is so quiet here.

Beef dinner franks is printed on the side of an open box. Proclaims them, "Sinai Kosher." And yet the franks are gone. Were they ever here? I can't remember. This box must have held a hundred, but I've eaten four or five, no more. The sign's an empty symbol. Pointing to the truth of wholesome hot dogs, it has nothing to offer the earnest seeker. Symbols without substance lose their meaning, waste our time, add clutter where simplicity is better suited.

A black wood stove sits dormant in the heat, but winter comes. Bags of newsprint, stuffed till stiff; new matches in a box. Lilac sticks and apple branches stacked in storage, wait. And then, we'll have a fire. Flame-warmed rooms require less light.

When life's too fast, I like to circle parking lots, leaving invisible loops, oblongs, figure eights in the asphalt. Today, I tried a tram, told the attendant I didn't know where I'd parked, just wanted to ride, move without moving, waste time. This flustered her sense of propriety, my lack of direction. She pointed out lightpost placards to help me find my way. What if I'm not looking? What if I don't need to know what's next?

Internet chess is not so difficult. Diagonally-ordered squares of black on white, paired pieces, angry queen. Lonely, impotent king shuffled to the side, dances with a rook, forgotten. Others claim the center, bite and break. No kills. We call them captured (waiting for another game). Careful choreography, no steps too soon. Until the end when rook and king renew acquaintance, tango to the corner, shyly serenade their silent friend. Let's play again.

My sister comes for the phone, looks around, waiting. "It's on the trunk." She sifts magazines, moves a box, steps over silk ties. Did she hear? Does she know I am speaking? What does she really want? I stay at the computer, sitting, sinking into squeaky-springed leather. She leaves.

Silk ties slip to the floor in the doorway. Golden curlicues and blue-hued boxes slide down sun-browned statues, stop short of silver hooks and a stone. When will I wear them? Jerry Garcia is dead. It was Wednesday the 9th. I'll leave the patterned pile, gently stepping over, around. No need to open old wounds. Let them rest.

A farmer scatters seed in a field. Half-hearted hands cast from a bag on his hip. Eyes, far away, see a boat skimming the waves under summer sun, full sail, fresh rush of air. Heels crush crumbling clods, bringing him back to the earth where he lives. It is good, this touch of sod and seed, the gift of growing things. It is life and love, this piece of land next to the sea where the wind blows.

The freezer hums a solitary monotone. Joy? I could not say. It is the same; no change from yesterday. Contentment? Yes, for satisfaction's found in function. A flower blooms, bears fruit. It dies. There is no sadness there, only hope for the next season of blossoms and thanksgiving for the fruit.

Rototiller rumbles other side of neighbor's fence, relentless. Sun beats down on my own garden, killing the cauliflower, withering bush beans. Zucchinni tangle with strawberry starts for a piece of dirty shade. Tomatoes burst in the heat. Peppers and petunias tumble and toss their flowers over the edge of railroad ties, teasing, taunting. They love the dry dog days of summer.

An open plastic pouch of chow mein noodles leans against stacked envelopes. Yellow bungee, dead, its white, plastic hooks no longer connect. Stenciled maple leaves climb the sides of a tissue box. Sitting in the midst, I'm hungry. Licking stamps, I taste the chemically sweetened adhesive. This is not food. It fails to nourish. There is no substance here.

Matador stands in the thick, green air, gold brocade on shoulder, weighted cape at waist. The crowd, watched and watching, invisibly silent. No bull. What comes? Why do we wait? What do we want? There is beauty in fear, something natural and free in unrehearsed terror. Choked gasps seem wondrously surreal in a world too full of stilted speech, contrived diversions, illusion.

Map of the city posted on my wall: triangle town. Central grid slides into scrambled jam of curves and corners. Straight streets in center point to outer edge where meandering lanes stumble, switch direction, stop. The old are rigid in their ways. Every connection measured, regular, predictable. Avenues count off in each direction. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Why change what works? Meanwhile, newer neighborhoods swagger and swirl. Flirting with danger, they never touch. Have they discovered truth or lost their way?

An orange, paper star hangs from a hook in the ceiling, concrete behind, computer beneath. Two bowling trophies, women on top, slide between curtain's scalloped edge and dirt speckled window. A hand holding hot dogs. Fat boy in a wading pool. Pigeon food for sale. Two towers rise into the Russian sky, covered with a "C". What does it mean? I sit here wondering, pondering pictures, words, fake wood panels with six repeating patterns. I hope it is good.