I Will Stop Here

The cable has been turned off. And although it has remained off for a very long time, the television is now unplugged and gone. Only the connector remains on the wall.

So I will not watch the pictures or listen to the commentators when that day comes around, one year after the day. I have read this, and perhaps it is enough.

[He] walks from the bright field into the hemlock woods just beyond the barren spot where Flight 93 slammed into the earth. It's mid-afternoon, but the woods are in permanent dusk, the tall trees allowing only a dim, gloomy light to filter down to the lush green ferns that blanket the ground. [D. Barry]

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The Last Two Miles

The arms of Fay are overhead, but her latest rains have come and gone. The rain barrel on the side of the house was full once more this morning. The sky is gray and the air, although thick, is mercifully cool compared to what is was like a few weeks ago.

Underneath the arching pedestrian bridge over Barton Creek, the blue-green water is whipped into waves blowing upstream from the north. Flotsam and jetsam and a few ducks and turtles bob and float and swim in the water by the shore. Far overhead the leaves of the Cottonwood trees quake in the breeze.

From across the river the sound of the horn of the northbound Amtrak train blows. They're only running two hours late. Two toots of the horn and they leave for the north toward Ft. Worth, and St. Louis and Chicago Union Station.

I wonder what's happening in the dining car.

My shorts and shirt are dripping wet, and my feet slosh with each step from the sweat that has been running down my legs. But most of my miles are behind me, and cold Gatorade beckons.

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Town Lake, Austin TX
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