I was walking home from the gym, listening to my iPod. (Allison Kraus, followed by Dolly Parton, if you must know.) Became aware of a man walking nearby so, like the good wary urban resident that I am, I unplugged, announcing to the world that I was Paying-Attention-So-Don't-Mug-Me. I instantly heard an amazing noise, cacophonous yet unified. First, I thought of grackles, but we don't have grackles here. I knew they were birds, flying north, but the sky was dark. My potential mugger -- really, a lovely man, I was just being cautious -- found them in the night sky, an eerie white-ish line. We both stared until they disappeared from view.

So, of course, I thought of this:

Tell Me a Story
by Robert Penn Warren

[A]

Long ago, in Kentucky, I, a boy, stood
By a dirt road, in first dark, and heard
The great geese hoot northward.

I could not see them, there being no moon
And the stars sparse. I heard them.

I did not know what was happening in my heart.

It was the season before the elderberry blooms,
Therefore they were going north.

The sound was passing northward.


[B]

Tell me a story.

In this century, and moment, of mania,
Tell me a story.

Make it a story of great distances, and starlight.

The name of the story will be Time,
But you must not pronounce its name.

Tell me a story of deep delight.

(c) somebody!

Tomorrow, next week, a year from now, a decade from now, I will go back to this entry and be happy.

And that's how memory journals are supposed to work.