ADVENT 2004

11/28/2004: in the sound of rushing wind in the back yard at 5:00 AM, but nothing seems to move nor is there any rain or snow, but only sound; and, in the evening, in the “a” of the Gioradino Brothers neon sign above several tombstones for sale there, the only letter lit, the Almighty;

11/29/2004: in the two unrelated sounds in the cafeteria of the New Britain General Hospital of a man coughing followed by a lady laughing; and, in the evening, in the display on a billboard seen from the Q Bridge from the approach to New Haven in tatters, much like an abstract painting, and behind it a glorious sunset in a pale blue sky;

11/30/2004: in the sliver of paper as a crescent pointing to the word “Dove” on the container for a bar of soap cast into a bathroom waste paper basket;

12/01/2004: in the shadow of a wheel, hanging from a dislocated cord of a pulley to operate the automatic garage door device, appearing on the floor in the early morning above another of a tool that appears as the point of an harpoon;

12/02/2004: in the two black pieces of roof which fell on a front door step, one in the shape of an aircraft carrier, the other a circle;

12/03/2004: in the 5 plastic or rubber holiday decorations for the lawn, each in a pile waiting to be inflated to objects like candles, a Santa Claus, or a red nosed reindeer; and in the trunks of trees cut down and lying on the ground in the golf course across the street in Wallingford;

12/04/2004: in the nightmare in the early morning in which a neighbor, pointing to what was killing one of the trees in his back yard and describing how other trees in the neighborhood were killed in a same fashion, by a long green vine attached to the tree, thin at the top but becoming bigger at the bottom and stuck into the trunk like a thick branch, on which there appeared an eye, as though in the head of a snake or a gargoyle, sucking the sap, and which, when its head was touched, opened its large mouth filled with sharp teeth, and, later, after waking learn a brother had lost his 1 ½ year battle with cancer at Connecticut Hospice; and in the nightmare of his daughter which frightened her into awaking at 2:00 AM, the time he died; and, later, in the white worm on the cover of a magazine which had eaten a portion of the dollar as a leaf of a branch, illustrating its lead article on the falling value of the dollar;

12/05/2004: in the face of a lady in the Clinton Crossing Mall parking lot, looking ahead, appearing over the head of a car before her, smoking a cigarette and talking on her cell phone, behind and above her the triangle of a cupola with a circle in the center and a cross within the circle between two green triangular roofs; and, moments later, in the silhouette of another lady, looking to her left, with a band of hair on the top and back of her head aglow in the fading sunlight as a light brown wreath, a few inches thick;

12/06/2004: in the piece of thread in the center of a small circle of dust in a waste basket, around the last two letters “rn” of “Northern” on discarded wrapper, standing in for registered nurse;

12/07/2004: in the half lit orange hand of a pedestrian stop sign between the Yale Bowl on the right and the Tennis Stadium on the left, in front of a tennis ball on a stadium sign, the stop sign for the pedestrian;

12/08/2004: in the inverted “V” of  flashing Christmas lights on a porch roof in the evening,  probably to simulate a Christmas tree top or an arrow to heaven; and in the man on a nearby porch, his raised hands those of one in prayer, but actually installing lights; and, moments later, in the gesture of a bicycle rider calling attention to an auto headlight that has outlived its service; and, in the burial of a brother, born on the 8th day of the 3rd month, and buried 9 months later, on this 8th day of the 12th month, which add to 3 and is also the product of 3 and 4;

12/09/2004: in the request on the telephone for information by one wishing to arrange for an eulogy at a funeral the moment a loud noise is heard in the back yard of a landscaper with helmet and a long hose to the ground, a grim reaper, blowing fallen leaves into a more manageable pile;

12/10/2004: in the two containers on the wall of the Gaylord Hospital with green flyers in the right holder and the other empty, above an empty coffee cup, beside the hospital mission statement and a picture hung as decoration;

12/11/2004: in the inside of a Snapple bottle cap, a “Real Fact” of one hundred fifty, informing the purchaser for the second consecutive time that the speed limit was 8 miles per hour in New York City one hundred nine years ago, which add to ten and then to 1 to give a proper balance;                                                

12/12/2004: in the small blue flag on the grassy strip marking the position of an underground utility line, to which points a bright yellow line painted on the road perpendicular to the curb with an inverted lower case “e” at its farther end, for earth or east or as a head with its mouth aghast, and beside the section on the other side of the sidewalk entrance to the front door with its pile of wood chips from the removal of a dead or dying tree, with two small right angles painted on the road as white coffin corners, while across the street is a small tree in a green bag, ready to be planted; and, later, in the two signs with “P” in a circle on the Granite Square Building in New Haven, one real next to the other, mirrored on the slick granite wall, over a sign with two arrows pointing in opposite directions on either side of the “Exit Enter” sign above the door to the parking garage;