In the scent of the earth that is late spring, over in the side yard, with its red, yellow and white rose beds ringed by violets, perpendicular to the small bed of Jerusalem artichokes (not to bloom til August), away from the corner of the garage near a sundial that stood higher than a birdbath (off from the side porch, closer to the street), on the neat, mowed part of the side lawn: two older men sat in lawn chairs, talking, and sipping iced tea. Both wore faded slacks, worn white shirts with suspenders. One fellow in ankle-high blue sneakers, the other, Mexican sandals. To someone walking along the sidewalk out front, their voices were clear, for the air was quiet, and perhaps too warm, in its hint of summer. Yet it was an illusion of their voices, for in truth it was only one man talking. A different man, or not a man but the face of a man as big as the entire vista: the yard, the trees, the houses beyond ... it was a man's face, peering through trees saying,
"The information we are given on violence, guns, alcohol, drugs, and the details in murder, abandonment and wars," his lips moved, beneath eyes as big as the windows of the house behind the trees, "seems a media priority, while no consideration at all is given to the fact of creative talents, and the arts, in education." Large eyes blinked.
"I feel I'm being watched," one of the men murmured.
"Oh, yes?" inquired the other. "By whom?" His voice was gruff. Perhaps once an official.
"I have no idea, but it's a he, and he's big!"
"The arts," the voice continued, "are a political embarrassment, as if serving a bowl of urine to a politician at a fund-raiser, a luncheon, and he is startled, and disgusted."
"Are you hungry?"
"No. You?"
"No."
"Why did you ask?"
"Just wondered."
An older woman inside the house, in a room on the third floor, looking down from a window at the two men, remarked to her young niece,
"There's old Harry down there." Smiled, shaking her head.
"What's he doing?"
"Wondering."
"About what?"
"That voice he heard."
The woman shuffled away with a chuckle, leaving the girl perplexed. Wondering,
"Why do old people speak in riddles?"
But a raucous cry from a jaybird swerved youthful curiosity from the answer, to search in the air outside for the big blue bird, under the very gaze of the great face behind the garden, which thought to speak, but fell silent.

Copyright © 2004 Estate of Fielding Dawson. All rights reserved.