2006-11-29 - 1:39 a.m.

It's late. Can't sleep yet. Just read a passage in which the father looks in on his two-year-old son and sees his head hit the pillow. It's early in the morning and the kid's been up and walking around. By the time the father gets to the bed, he's sound asleep. That's nice. I'd like to be able to fall asleep like a rock, like a drink of water, like a breath.

Also, the father's thinking of death. There's a man with gray hair sitting in a chair in his back yard. The father's wondering why the man's there. He decides the man is death: "So much remained. Every word and thing a beadwork of bright creation."

Late in my bedroom here and it's quiet. Out my window, there's the Amtrak going either south or north. The conductor's blowing his horn. I hear the low rumble of the train, the cars on Greenmount every now and then, sometimes a shout because it's not cold yet and there are still shouts. The train sounds so workmanlike. Like commerce. Like goods are being hauled. Like cards being punched. Like dinner being thought about. Like whiskers and a thumbed collection of short stories and like a worn box of Luden's cough drops.

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