The Senses

I walked down to the 9th and Irving Farmer's Market and the air was warm, even though it looked cold. I picked up fresh sun-dried tomato pesto and freshly made soft pasta. I would cook them for dinner. I stopped for dahlias, soaking up the last of the season. The flowers blazed cold in garnet color and warm in orange and creams.

I walked back up the hill slowly. A woman stopped me and remarked on my flowers...garnet and fuschia and cream. She bade me enjoy them. I took them home and removed the leaves, and arranged them in two separate vases.

I took the Number 6 to church. I got off three stops before the one I needed because someone had wet themselves and the air in the bus was getting thicker, and thicker. I walked down Laguna, past the brick and white trim of the Zen Center. I turned right at Hayes, and left at Franklin. My iPod played John Denver, and thank God.

I reached the church. The windows were ablaze with candy colors--peppermint, cinnamon fire, amythest, anise aquamarine. A white choir was lowing a southern spiritual from the rafters. The minister administering the benediction wore the colors of pride.

Lunch was a roast chicken and mashed potato affair at Tommy's Joint. I picked up a coffee at Philz and walked down Van Ness, guarded on all sides by granite and wrought iron.

Pasta for dinner. With a mojito margarita that tasted like the skin of a white grape off the vine. Cold rain making argyle patterns in the picture window.

I taste. I saw. I caught--heard.