of beets and rain and crushes, and most of all, pouring

i walked home in the rain today. i mean, when i set out, it was not raining. it was obvious sun behind many clouds. it was the alternative of when i am on the airplane, and the thick layer of clouds below but the sun so shining on all of us flyers, and we can't believe those below aren't just soaking it in. but then, nearly there, only 10, 15 minutes left, and it's really coming down. i love how the rain varys in intensity, but no one is skimming the dimmer switch. when it's raining, it's remininding us of another fourth demention, that the sky is 3-d, too.

all over today, it's fall. i have not experienced explicit autumn since 5 years ago. how i like it, how it makes the smells grander, and the colours richer, and the textures more canyonous. rubbing a bit of shrubbery between my two fingers all the way home, transferring hard earned chlorophyll from it to me. so fresh it smells. biking is good, very good, but in the end, walking is the better. 'walk along little children, take each other by the hand, we will all live for ever when we make it together, walking to the promise land.' today i noticed that the little berries that i'd been riding over, pondering over, are acutally olives. many of them are still connected to trees. can i harvest them (do not eat freshly harvested olives, too bitter, no no, one must marinate them first. attenzione)? i will find out from a stranger in the polmology department, which i have been itching to get into, but lamentably is closing after this quarter. the last polmology department in the country.

but when i get home, after passing also persimmon trees and pomegranates ripe, it is time for the wine. coming home to the glass(es) of wine is coming home to a lover. the lover is my academic self. it is the reflection of the hard work and the romanticism in reading. oh, we have a toast to the new words and the way our heads spin with the new ways of thinking, to drown the hard paper edges and soak in the rich thinking for thinking's sake alone.

tonight it was the beets i have been harboring for the past 2 weeks. lately too lazy to put in the beet effort. but tonight, after that walk, after the autumn aroma, it was time. everytime i eat beets it is a celebration, a religious rite. blame it on tom robbins, and on the way they stain like that. but tonight, a new fact did the beets give rise to. as i was lauding writer tom to poet megan, she informed me that salome (of other, non-beet, tom fame), daughter of some famous queen (one we've surely heard of, but don't be so quick to label her sheeba), after performing her enchanting and irresistable dance of the seven veils, was granted anything she wished by some famous king (one we've surely heard of, but don't be so quick to label him herod). and so, after consulting mommy dearest, salome requested the head of st. john the baptist. and so came the death of my old testatment/new testament crush.

but it is a different crush altogther, a biblical friend (for reasons to be discussed later. dear god, only so much bible study in one night, please) that leads me to the last topic. that of pouring. it all out, that is. oh, this is a theme that comes in and out all the time. knowing when to speak and let the floodgates open, and when to keep quiet. until i crossed paths with a certain majestic one whom i truly admired and adored, i had not known the virtue of quiet. of keeping one's own counsel. now i believe in it, like a creed, like a beatititude, blessed are those who keep their own counsel, they shall find their own reward. but perhaps it is not in my nature - i certainly have not determined this yet. but again this shabazz rears is vocal head at a time when, in other avenues, i am forcing my mouth open and words to come out. today, a triumph of speaking in class, in both classses, and reason be damned, i do not care if i sound foolish or un.phd.educated, for it is what i'm thinkin', i just let it flow - about honor and the american dream as it applies to chicano youths in chicago in the 70's, about the changing concepts of community. ah, sure, why not?

but beyond why not?, a bigger question arises for me today.
do we ever truly hear the sound of the wind, or just the sound of the wind rushing through other things?