Little Things

It's nice to see the world from the standpoint of big stuff that happens. But honestly President's don't die every day and other things matter more. What kind of things?
Things we smell and taste. Things we eat. Things we do.
Like Testors glue.
Like the smell of swamp mud on your boots. Like the way the leaves act right before a thunderstorm. Like when you go away for summer vacation and when you come home the world is a deep, hot, humid green. Or sneakers. Clean and white at the beginning of summer and then by the end a dull gray. Their deep funk. Or hiding in some little place in a game that no one knows about and watching the spiders and smelling the mildew. Or clambering into the sewers for an adventure that isn't really an adventure because it's just a pipe and it goes no where. Nowhere.
Like lying in your bed watching a summer storm. Lightening. Thunder. Wind. Trees thrashing this way and that. Or the smell of your grandmothers house. Or going into a friends house and it's not like any place you've ever been before. There's the smell of hairspray or cologne or cleaning agents and you step back for a second. Shocked. Seduced.
Or spring erupting with a magnificence you can't understand and the stink of skunk cabbage and the deep mud and dead animals strewn on the swamp.
Crayons. The smell of wax. Paste. The way it tastes.
All the candies in the world.
Neats foot oil.
Hay.
Tar.
Your mothers cigarettes.
Incense at the church at high mass and it's stink.
Floor wax.
Termiticides in the crawl spaces of your house.
Must.
Death.
Life.
Sweat.
Soap.
All the different kinds of soap.
Lava.
Handsoap.
Moss.
Lilacs
Your mothers perfume.
Chanel number five.
The books in the basement of the library.
Your aunt as you sleep next to her.
Dirt.
Clay, which is different than dirt and loam and top soil and swamp mud and leaves and new mown grass.
The way the air smells just before a winter storm.
Lightning.
Fear.
Rubber.
Burning rubber.
Rubber cement.
Rubber balls.
The truck running down the alley behind the post office spraying for mosquitoes.
Paint thinner.
Paint.
Shellac.
Chrome cleaner.
Gasoline.
Leaves burning on the curb.
Bleach.
The dead mouse in the crawl space.
So many things with so little reason. Except they shape your life.
Except they shape your life.
The loud cry of the fire whistle.