Once upon a time..

Waiting endlessly at the end of the sunrise to see what lies next, the field rat moves among the sheaves of grain, picks nimbly at an ear of corn and gathers its little families into their rat hole homes; the birds in the sky make their way home, threading through the telephone wires, watertanks and the gathering gloom of the evening.

Down below on the road, the fresh tire-tracks made by a vehicle on the road, loses its shape at the heel of the boot when a fat drop of rain falls and scatters the dust around…making it look like a small volcano. Last night in the rain, the small sparrow had found its nest in the winter-dry tree with small dusty leaves clinging limply.

The field rat is now scurrying over right this very spot, returning from the sojourn it makes every evening to the other side of the road where the small cottages have been built and are home to the old man, the frail woman, along with the girl with the round eyes and the little boy with the perpetually runny nose. The radio blares in one of the other huts and slowly , one after the other, small, flickering lights are lit in the evening gloom, to usher in the delicious, wind-sharp, cold-heel night.A flame dances in the wind, and stands still another time and slowly, the insects of the night, small and winged,hear the air crackle around them in their mud-hole beds that they creep into during the corners of the day….slowly, as if in a trance, they move-fluttering, searching for that fire that will warm,singe,light up, destroy,burn,excite, color, blind, transform.

What is the moment that gets caught amid their silky wings when they venture too close, too many times, until a gentle lick of the flame embraces them and transforms them into notes that lend to the music of the night-for that night, giving themselves to the slow perfection of that moment which crawls into the morning…what of tomorrow?