Sometime in the next few overcast days we might come into something, a bit of dirt south of here on the fringe of a very still river. The very dirt we went to see and kick feet through today. As dirt goes it was loose and full of things more often underground, for large machines have been here recently a�tilling and a tree lay in pieces at the back end of it all, and large tracks went all around the place.

There�ve been shekels exchanged and I have signed fluidly on many longish dull forms. The woman did too. And so we went, to see what all the shekels and dirt scratching might yield up.

I walked, and played idly with a long measuring tape, and exclaimed aloud that house would be here, shop over there, this should be smooth and the oak tree was healthy and look at the shade in the corner.

Ally leaned against the car and just inhaled, arms crossed and head just tilted awry, and may have had eyes closed behind sunglasses, I don�t know. Inhaled hope, and possibilities, long summer dinners under shade and freezing mornings and boots in the hallway, and roosters across the road. Children. Many children, and their hands on the leash of a young dog who pulls them in that pin wheeling way across grass, shrieking.

I admired the large shop in the distance, belonging to he who would be neighbor, and wondered where he must have purchased such a handsome thing. And neighbor, and the neighbor of the neighbor, gathered in the large doorway and wondering loudly �No, I don�t know who those people are.�

I had to grin, sometimes we don�t quite know who these people are either.

Maybe we�ll all be finding out soon enough. When the backwater calls, and when the dirt is stilled, and Ally puts the last curtain in the new window and turns the burner on under the soup.

Soon enough, and we�ll be down home.

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