Sometimes a Rattlesnake

We walked past the pool in the heat of the afternoon.  A rattlesnake was leisurely swimming there.   I had planned to go in.  Nope!

Then I had a strange dream.  I lost my roller board suitcase at the station.  There were many black bags with red yarn tags like mine on the handle.  I spotted one in a group that was labeled "Anne Lauterbach."  I'm not in that group, I thought, traveling together, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E P=O=E=T=R=Y.  Next, Louis showed me his shiny new gold medal.  I'm not in that group either,  I thought, shiny new gold medal winners.  Feeling pretty low.  Like Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, after losing all his manuscripts on the train.  Or T.E. Lawrence, leaving his only manuscript copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom at Redding Station.  Gone.

Earlier, I was in the library at my childhood home, which had a name similar to the house I live in now, called Cedarside.  Suddenly, everybody was leaving.  The dog, like our dog, was lying in the middle of the living room rug, something my parents would never have allowed.  One of the maids told me to put on my nightie because I was carrying my brown linen dress, and I was naked above the waist.  I followed her in her pretty yellow uniform, bearing a tray with a box of Cheerios, up the stairs to my old bedroom, which Louis and I were sharing.  Then we were on the train into the City, amazingly close, I thought, as I looked at the upscale stores, a gorgeous mall like The Grove in Los Angeles, and I realized we were still in Westchester County.

The whole time I was carrying the brown linen dress that needs, in real life, to be shortened to do away with the hole and material thinned from too much use.

So, I thought, it's all all worn out or gone.  I'll start afresh, a brand new passport.  A new passport to poetry.   Cheers!

Not sure what that means.

By the time evening came and we looked in the pool again, the rattlesnake, too, had gone on his own sweet way.  Hooray!