Have been trying to leave the house first thing this year. so far. in the time when work is slow and there are days where i might not leave the house at all. or when Zam was here….just here and had it seemed always been here, we would leave the house a handful of times to – at least walk around the block and in the winter one drive on those days to find a new park or field to try out its smells and most importantly those smells – the messages dogs leave for one another in their pee: male dog on daily walk with uptight owner, 6 yrs old, sore hip but love to stare into your eyes if you can ever be here when i am – then jump suddenly, hoping you jump too, might also have diabetes; unsure –

Or same search for strange parks on those hot summer days as the too cold or too hot are 8 months of surviving here – was only the remaining months, if we were lucky to not hear the work bell ding that we could go north 30 minutes or so to the woods – the southern Ontario stand in for real woods but woods the same and find our hidden trails where we would only maybe somedays see a soul and even as an older dog Zam would jump and run and I would yell : Zam slow down – slow down – until our last walk 20 minutes but with 20 more for gathering the mushrooms from my lobster patch – our last walk, real walk as much of the last few months was carrying her everywhere – I would have carried her everywhere if I knew she wasnt hurting more and more until she hurt no more and I carried her to that hole in the ground and covered her in dirt……

And so now just me alone after those 16 years of us and the people that came and went from us – and I know that things cant be the same so I toss my windy thots into the windy breeze, my actions too: for now I wake up each day and try to leave: coffee here or there, Pt. Perry being the many there recently altho its quiet street, coffee shop and people shuffle about, old bookstore – does call to me – it’s small and I might have already seen it all

Or coffee in a cup instead down by the Whitby harbour, by the lighthouse and the birds that can’t find south or maybe say they’re right behind “right behind you guys” and stay and loot the best fishing holes or maybe sometimes try but freeze and die – as I sit and stare and change because everything will always change – you are not the first birds to be so wise, to die – not the only ones to die