0 The Farm on Ledyard Road

The sky's pink red purple light pollution orange at the edges and it's a long long walk on a quiet road. Listen crickets leopard frogs hoot hoot goes the owl, quiet gentle seeming almost there but not there still quiet long road night.  Late night walks home in solitude it's peace and prosperity and no judgments, no grades, no worry standing tiptoe don't fall off the edge of eternity stretching vast before me.

Our High Holy Buddha Incarnate says

Compassion and peace of mind bring a sense of confidence that reduces stress and anxiety

and this is peace, this should be but never really lonely peace of long road owl companionship long long peaceful walk lowers stress, lowers anxiety, brings compassion whole world deep hearted deep throated compassion bursting effervescent lovely wondrous deep deep breathless in my chest.  Watching night and sky and pink purple red orange hide and seek stars and the Milky Way stretching endless path echoed road overhead brings compassion and peace and empty lonely deep fulfilled breathlessness.

Warm thick soft night sky and the owl and the leopard frog coo hoot croak in harmony most sweet, most rare, simple subtle intense.  Long walk, longer thoughts.  Time for streetlights and sidewalks past, finished no shutters cupolas dormers bay windows, little decorative mailboxes.  No people, rushing people, hiding people, people locked inside why inside? Why always inside?  A town's prosperity is inversely proportionate to its outdoor activity.  Our High Holy Buddha Incarnate doesn't say this; I do.

But Buddha, funny Buddha, precious Buddha now man in orange saffron robes and sandals and perpetual smile, he says Compassion and so I must say Compassion and not look to the cliff, to the end, to the lack the lackluster the failure of neighbors and classmates and teachers and infinitum.  Instead: Compassion.  Passion.  Deep night sky breathless com(passion).

Owl calls world weary thickness, throat filled melancholy night song.  My feet scuff pebbles, shoes flapping, molecular dirt shaking twisting slipping through the hole in the sole, red canvas flap flapping dirt pebbles bubbling night time mementos like beach sand caught on seashells trapped in boxes and jars.  Ahead, more dirt more night more owl cricket leopard frog night fog orange pink purple sky and deep breathless firmament and ahead, far ahead, a ghost white standing soldiers fence, crookedly.  Ahead, the once maybe bright now dark dim life(less) once happy farmhouse barn clothesline with linen sheet spirits endless flapping mournful night cries.  Once: white happy bright sunshine blue sky laundry-detergent-ad sheets swaying ever joyous sing hallelujah praises sweet american dream sheets, waving endless on bright sunshine clothesline.  Now: empty clothesline not empty, but should be, shouldn't be shivering humped mournful weathered grey and tattered ghost empty desperate endless night's infinite mourning.  Says Buddha: Compassion.  See sheets: Compassion.

Who lived here in the once upon a time?  Who held the ghosts before they were abandoned distraught fragments of once selves guarded by crooked leaning shoulder holding shoulder fence?  A tall barn empty, hunkering but looming but no owl sounds here, no cricket no frog.  Even purple pink red orange sky grows more dark deep gulping breaths lonely.  So cold, so far.  So empty.

I stand at the fence posts, rest my hand gentle delicate soft sorry on weary soldier shoulders, watch the sheets grey sheets empty vast sky edging sheets.  No wind, no harmony sheets limp so world weary melancholy sighing off slouched back empty loose arms once sheets.  The barn watches, endless and infinite, vigilant praying (preying?) long cold night sky thoughts maledictions? Benedictions.  Endless prayer, endless passion deep hardened passion running far far below never ending infinite passion.  Not Compassion.  Passion.

Ahead, far more ahead, home.  Echoing rooms, old popcorn on the kitchen counter.  Here, the infinites of sky sheets barn weary crooked fence and the silence eternal silence rushing ears silence of the vast nothing.

My feet move on.