morning kettle
we boiled water for tea. the cat watched the steam the way a person watches a slow film. nothing happened, which is the point.
12·04·2024
a wednesday. the kitchen smelled of black tea and woodsmoke.
scroll · or · ↓
i · almanac
a strip of small weather.
we kept a list of the small things and the list took the day's shape, the way a folded letter takes the shape of its envelope.
ii · the long look
a hillside, mid-afternoon.
the path we did not take is still walking somewhere, in its own weather. we walked the other one and that was enough.
iii · margins
a page someone had read twice.
the kettle clicked off at six forty-one. nobody was waiting on it. the steam went sideways across the window for a moment and then it was a different kind of light entirely — the kind that means you remember the names of things you have not said out loud since october.
we kept the radio low. someone read out the temperatures of small towns we had never been to. the announcer pronounced them as if they were the names of relatives.
outside the window, the hillside was holding its breath. a kind of green that only happens in december, and only in this country, and only at the hour when the sun starts to thicken into something you can almost see.
iv · field notes
small dated entries.
the walk down to the lower field
boots dry, gloves stiff with the cold of last week. the path was already there, waiting. we let it lead. there was a sound like paper folding which turned out to be a starling.
the letter
arrived by the afternoon post. addressed only to *the house*. inside, a pressed leaf and the sentence "we have been thinking of the green there." we have been thinking of it too.
candle, for no reason
lit early. not for atmosphere — only because the kitchen had begun to dim and the candle was within reach. some rooms are lit by need and some by habit. this was habit.
it was a wednesday. the room held the light a long time.
colophon.
set in Fraunces and Newsreader, with metadata in DM Mono.
printed in two passes — forest and persimmon — on cream stock.
drawn on a 30°/30° isometric grid, line weight 1.25.
filed under: almanac, december, kept things.