Fatale Abstraction

Sunday morning was unbelievably beautiful and I decided to take the little old lady dog for an extra-long walk, only this time, I let her have her lead and determine where we went. I try to let her go off on some little sniffy-adventures when we walk, but usually it seems I am pressd for time and need to keep up a good clip. I hate how limited she has to be, but she's a city dog, and she's a wild girl, so off-leash is not even a remote possibility. Her not-so-inner intrepid self balks at such limitation, and I am sympathetic to her frustration - in her diminutive chest beats the fierce heart of a lioness. We walked down to the nearby greenbelt through which a creek runs, and she made free to explore the wooded area. She sniffed around the edges, almost timid at first, and then she looked down a path into the trees, looked back at me, and then plunged forward, nose to the ground and occasionally snagging on thorny stems of wild roses vining up from the ground. I think she was blissed out and feeling fine, as all the way home her gait was that classic jaunty, bouncing step so distinctive of a Jack Russell Terrier. Not bad for 16.5 years, my baby.

Impossibly tiny blossoms dotted the grass like an easter dress, and just when I focused on all the teeny lilac-colored blooms, my eye was drawn to an even smaller yellow occasional flower. I noticed the dried fruit on some sort of berry tree through which the light passed like amber. I could see the core of the seed, more dense inside. Maybe later this year, some obliging bird will deposit those seeds somewhere miles away where they'll yield more fruit trees to please the eyes of walkers on April days decades from now.

I also noticed my favorite harbinger of seasonal change, the Monarch butterfly. My favorite time for Monarchs is in the Fall when they migrate through North Texas in staggering numbers on their way to the forests of Brazil where the trees will hang heavy with great pulsing swags of Monarch colonies. Near summer, they head back north as far as Canada. On our walk I saw a few lone Monarchs flying about, but then a flirtatious, love-drunk pair flitted dangerously close by, intent on their task and oblivious to the mammalian monsters in the vicinity. Doglet carried on with her olfactory investigations, but I was captivated by the moment and stood stock-still until they passed from view in the canopy of new leaves.

One day soon the relentless spate of sunny, blistering days will make me long for a life in Alaska or some such cooler clime. For now, though, it was an amazingly pretty day, and I was glad of the sunshine.

Have a great week!