"It's Been Two Years" - Part Eleven - "Bark Mulch" - "The Opposite Direction" - (B)

"It's Been Two Years"

Part Eleven

"Bark Mulch" - "The Opposite Direction"

(B)

            As Cadence and I wait and watch silently with the ...hope... to discern a cat appear to ...utilize... her neighbor’s bark mulch pile (?)... I

            Let my eyes... and the antiquarian gypsy wagon following behind that ‘my eyes’... discern, too... more.

            It was in the dim doorway’s light upon the sick chairs across from me... that assemblage:  In that

            Collage. In that

            Pile of junk; the

            “Old barn

            Full

            Of it”

            I was looking at; the ‘across from me to the left’:  There I notice... the ‘open end’ of an old... farm animal... stall?  Or was it (is it) a ‘wagon box’ open on the bottom and pushed back to a ‘the wall’?

            OR could it be

            That it was-is just a PIECE of an old “FARM EQUIPMENT”

            Long, long ago ‘put away safe’... abandoned?

            “Oh who cares.” my NOT curious brain told my TOO curious eyes.

            So the eyes dropped to the floor... and creeped toward the shed

            Door (to the outdoors)...

            And gathered MORE

            ‘Put away safe’ ...abandoned (?).

            “One, two, three, four.... seven, eight, NINE, ten” my wandering eye noticed and tallied

            “OLD DISHES” “on the floor”... gathering as

‘more’

            As my eyes

            Approached the door.

            “OLD DISHES” you say?

            Old dry dirty dry sticky dry

            Cat food

            “DISHES”

            I say.

            IN the “ON the” dark dirty FLOOR... way

            Leading to the

            Doorway.

            Have I just done ‘that’ again; the old medicine spoon TRICK?

            Of MY “WHY?”

            Of old New England homes? (Part Nine [A,B,C])

            SCRAPPLE DOWN on your knees to be with ME upon my

            HANDS and KNEES

            To be ‘picking through’ “YOUR OLD CAT FOOD DISHES CADENCE;

AREN’T THEY WONDERFUL!”

            “OH I’VE GOT TO GET THOSE CLEANED UP.”
            “OH DON’T EVER BOTHER:  THEY are WONDERFUL the WAY THEY ARE.”

            “YES and the precious littles...:  DON’T THEY CARE!  Each one MUST HAVE their own PLATE.”

            “Precious little?”

            “Own plate?”

            I must have... these... plates?

            Rummaging, I gather... I garner... now ‘eleven, twelve’...

            “THIRTEEN”.

            Old plates; one broken

            In half

            BUT AN OLD BREAK... “GLUED” (‘old glue’)

            TOO.

            I know the world of the collector!  The devil of the collector.  The trying; the buying.  The setting down... of a THAT object with THAT fact of THAT place in THAT TIME... HERE:

            “NEVER”.

            Under the chairs... on the floor... in the dirty... DIRT.

            DIRT:  THIS IS NOT BARK MULCH:

            They are the WEEDS of ‘old china’; old china plates WEEDED (pulled up) by Cadence from a HOUSE FULL (mansion full) of ‘old china plates; old china’.

            “YES, YES, yes... yes” my mediocre brain tallies THAT.  THAT “GOSH” “CADENCE” “you have the MOST STUNNING collection of OLD CHINA PLATES you

            USE TO FEED

            Your cats.”

            “Don’t they speak KINDLY of it to ME:  They KNOW I know they know I love that THEY love the pretty old china.  Don’t they?” she says.  Or am I thinking she is saying this to the back... of the top... of my head while I ...scrapple... under the fourth stick chair to pull the little “IT’S A CUP PLATE” out from under... too.  Or am I feeling her whimsy words warm on the top back of my ...MY... own curious collector’s eyes that I

            HAVE JUST COLLECTED HER (Cadence’s)

            PLATES MYSELF;  an... unrecoverable collection I...

            I...

            “MUST remember to put these back “EXACTLY” “can I... do that?”.  I am looking over my right shoulder at her (Cadence) JUST SITTING THERE... smiling down at me as I ...rummage

            Her

            Collection on earth; the greatest

            Collection on earth of

            OLD CAT FOOD

            Plates found in the OLD SEA CAPTAIN’S MANSION

            By discrimination?

            By choice?

            By thought?

            BY FEEL?  She has collected and displayed and I am searching my SELF to WRITE the MUSEUM LABELS to display with each plate to SAY TO THE WHOLE

            UNIVERSE of the collector

            “SHE HAS BEAT YOU”

            “And me too.”

            I start putting the plates back... where they were... just as they were... “THERE”.

            “Wow.”

            And I just had a whole seminar of “HOW” “I COLLECT”  with guest speakers and papers “given” (read) with color slides showing EACH SPECIMEN and handing out ‘hand’s on’ examples to CIRCULATE amongst the audience of ...career professional collectors who will NOW BREAK US ALL INTO SMALL GROUPS and, wearing our matching (orange) shirts TOO will ‘talk’ ‘about’ WHAT?

            On earth am I doing letting exactly what she just said; “the precious littles”, of ALL of the old ...sea captain’s mansion old china SCATTERING... falling... SHATTERING... she... swept that UP and FEEDS THE CATS with “IT”; her

            OLD ANTIQUE CHINA

            DISHES

            HER GREAT, great, great, grandmother who bought “the precious littles”

            Is there too

            Under the stick chairs

            IN THE DIRTY

            DIRTY DRY

            Too.

            I put the last plate...; the first plate I originally picked up... ‘back’, ‘exactly’

            “The littlest ones (plates) I always put the CHICKEN heart on.” Cadence says.  She means the cup plate and smallest ‘sauce plate’.  I know this; that Cadence roasts a chicken once a week and eats it slowly; one drumstick a day... with the heart... roasted... too.  I NOW KNOW... it is ‘given’ ...to the cats... on ...the mid nineteenth century (1850) medium blue transferware earthenware (‘soft paste’) (clay body) ‘cup plate’... with two tiny-tiny figures walking ...under a parasol... licked clean... by the cats.

            We (Cadence and I) are under the parasol.

            I have been licked clean

            By the cats.

            “Old Sea Captain’s Mansion you say?”

            Go ahead and buy the old dishes at a flea market.

            “My grandmother’s”.

            Go ahead and feed the cats on the “Old dry dirty dry sticky dry

            Cat food

            Dishes”.

            Go ahead and roast a chicken’s heart

            And put it on a cup plate.

            Go ahead... always... knowing that will

            NEVER “Why?”.

            For it is a:

            “That be a

            Lie”.