As before a journey

Can't sleep tonight: it's the kind of sleeplessness that usually precedes a trip, or the first day of the semester. Woke at 2:30 and tapped a note into my PDA, the light from its little screen bright against my face. Gave myself Reiki. Thought about an essay that Third Coast rejected almost two years ago. Tried to remember all the words to "Famous Blue Raincoat."

The dog was circling the bed. 3:20 AM. Got up to let her out. Found my shorts in the dark. She was in disbelief: I'm usually the snoring bear who can't be roused.

Downstairs, in the laundry room, watching Sadie through the window: faint white blur slipping behind the hedge to pee, only slightly more distinct than my own reflection in the glass. It's been raining gently. Hope it lasts. Sadie steps back onto the patio, checks to see I'm at the door, heads down the brick walk to the back yard. Number Two. I go into the kitchen, pour a half-glass of water. When I check back, she's amorphous, moving toward the door. I think of the title of Mary Ruefle's new book: A Little White Shadow.

Quiet. A few crickets and the hum of someone's air conditioner down the street. Sadie's on the futon, licking the rain off her paws. I'm trying to remember the color pattern on the webworm caterpillars that used to invade our yard when I was small: a series of tiny grids, sort of blue-green, unexpected among the darker stripes. Almost the blue of a jewelweed seed, the astonishing robin's egg blue revealed when I would scrape the seed coat with my thumbnail. But I think I'm confusing the colors; I'm certain about the jewelweed--touch-me-not--and less sure that the caterpillar had any blue at all.

[photo: Night View #8 ]