Sacramento O No

An asparagus eating contest— I thought I’d misheard. Downstairs the rude old man lays tile, makes demasiado noise. I fell asleep at last around 5:30 am and he woke me an hour later or so: it is better I don’t look at the clock. By this means I clock my progress: I know now it is sometimes better not to know. I have midnight equilibrium but it is gone by 3 am. Thank you for Cloud of Sparrows, man who wrote it. I read all night. Thank you for the pen from Iran, Kamyar. Its myriad stars have just run out of ink eleven years on. Thank you, sun, for leaf shadows on horrible carpet in horrible box I live in and for tree by which I mean what’s living. I think of the gardens I planted and left. I think of beets, of beans and asparagus. Then on the radio, hear the contest. The noise of ten lanes of traffic does not cancel the consolation of seeing the wind in the sweetgum leaves. The experience of this is my food and my sleep. As at some strange customs, I declare.