Friday characters

My pal Milky Dent called me very early today. Before most of my morning things. Well before hummingbirds welcomed me to the awakening walk. He said, “I have a thought for you.” I asked, “What is it?” He said, “Being old is a disguise.” I thought I heard him chuckling softly as he hung up the phone.

A little later, slipping deeply into my ‘Morning Pages’, the words “Check engine” showed up. If you read yesterday’s post here you’ll know I got to talk about a brand new “Check Engine” light shining on the Camry’s dashboard. But, this wasn’t that. Falling into the ‘Pages’ was a question – What if “Check engine” is a metaphor? For me. Check the engine when I feel less than. Check the engine which drives thinking I’ve got it all figured out. Check the engine which invites poetry into any day I’m given. For instance, there was a half moon in the light blue sky. I was happy to see it and stopped to look a few times. One of those times I saw a crow flying directly in front of it, and this poem came into my poet’s, engine-running mind: “A crow flies before the moon.” That was the whole thing, not even as long as a haiku and, still, enough. I get to check the engine of enough too. Toward the end of the walk I looked up to the moon again and saw three crows flying by. Then my poem changed. To this:

A crow flies before the moon. Crows are flying before the moon.

And the thought Milky shared with me, the old being a disguise thing? I already knew that. It’s remarkable how much Milky and I think alike. Here’s my forever 15-year-old heart, disguised amidst wrinkles and whimsical aches and pains, a trickster when my heart gallops ahead of its usual self, like a road race. What runners might call ‘interval training.’

A poet, an older-wrinkly guy, he who bows to crows and the moon, all these and more showed up and sat in the recliner this morning. Sharing coffee. Sharing whimsy. Sharing another sacred day.

Which crow flies before the moon?