Beginning with the frost and snow,
anticipation extended its tedious reach again,
but it was not right to suffer as the season
swept around the sun.  A member of the
fall, like a tender leaf felt inured, by thought,
a humble intellect to serve the usual course

in words and weather, the pride of a
recurring sort.  Weary blades of grass

were striving, even so, to grow against
the warmth in the few weeks, and, as the
skirts were purchased in the stores,
investment ruled to favor amiable, cold

breezes.  The house grew quiet as the fans
were stilled for a suspense until the
furnace roared.  The issue was patterns in
layers from the top, and the claim to the
design belonged only to the way the ice
expanded as crystals of moisture, crazy,
having forgotten how to caress the blossoms
of the shrubs; thus, a pleasure had gone to
sleep, its circulation numbed by

inevitable force, and conditions hibernated
beneath the indelible clarity of the air.  The
splendid gyrations of the course became
obstacles harder on tightened joints, while
contestants moved from the warm climate
to the chilling, northern forests.  It remained

possible to survive, because there were other
members of the team such as split sticks of
wood and cradles for sprained elbows.  It
could not be suitable to grow tired of such a
challenge.  When the door was secured, the

roots could relax and spread out like the
tentacles of a squid, beside the glowing hearth,

to read a book or watch a show.  Above, there
was nothing left alive between the earth and
the birds, scratched into the sky and dashed
along the lines of wire.  Birds sagged and were

swaying while the gusts played with their bony
feet clutched around the cylinders made of
copper and coated with insulation.  Warm
currents and feathers made a thatch for a roof
that favored the roots and left them insulated
while around them slumbering creatures had
been forgotten.  No memory existed to claim
the cycle of the warm days when the humming
in space reflected the ripples in the shaded
pools.  The endless days were the realm of
vacant threads of branches in the chilly trees.

The Setting Was A Colored Stone (Pare 1 Of 3)

For the barefoot girl, the faithful
album was an afternoon in the
sports bar where there had been
a guitar player and some ginger ale.

Now the trumpet was singing a wide
screen view of the big game.  
Eliminating distractions, the crew
was focused on the game, ignoring
the girl as she wandered, in bare feet,
between the tables.  No pretense
suggested that the medium was not
appropriate for those who climbed
railroad ties and those who drank beer
in moderation after negotiations about
the green sheaves and the upstairs room.

In this castle, time was suspended.

The Setting Was A Colored Stone (Part 2 Of 3)

Ashes were good for the roots of the plant
in the window where the response was
directed to the coolness, or the hot weather.
In sports, the weather seemed to be extreme.
It was always freezing cold the opposite;
coaches meant to be cautious watching for
heat stroke among the players.  The club was
not louder than the dim barn where animals
were removed from the immediacy of the
last few weeks of the season.  Some of the
birds could not fly; there were mice that
could climb to humble abodes in the rafters,
and the cats gathered apart from the dogs.
The heavy lifters had reassuring
incantations derived by the artificial
structures of the radiology through iconic
projection.  Antenna reception hovered to
mark the insects with aesthetic devices,
a discovery by evolution.

The Setting Was A Colored Stone (Part 3 Of 3)

Screams came from the permutation and
signing a transcript of the spiritual drawing
which had been seen wandering among all
the other creatures living and working in
the flying building.  The gathering showed

grinning teeth and disappeared.  Found at

the bottom of the mineshaft, was the fictional
ring of speculations and associations
confronting the mischief of the few by the
motionless badges of authority.  Life depended
on the weathered red boards where the climate
ranged like it was galloping across the public
space, proved free by the friendliness of
kindly associates and the universe of powers,
the authority of birds that did not fly and barns
that had flown away.

Straight lines bound the edges,
while it became necessary to spend
the anchor of time lost in the twisting
patterns slowly darkening to supply
the molecules which provided scenery.

The character was divided
between a wolf and the hiker towering
at the pinnacle of the hill to gaze above

the head of the beast across to the vista
of the trail.  Roses bloomed, and the ink
was done, to dry while color trickled
in a world comprised through streams
of shivering light reflected from

the mountain, a flower raised by
the frivolous event of cataclysmic times;
the hatchet carved its cliffs to make

a face of empty granite and the soul of
the rock.  The delay created a great offer,
considered by erosion, but the hesitation
defied the smoothing influence of climates
and their ages.  The rise killed the
enthusiasms of the hiking spirit,
reconstituting the problem, and
the messenger of hilarity was never less
welcome than when enthusiastic about the
confusion of lost victims.  Always a few
of these were

in the scenes along the shimmering trails
with their names that changed at inconvenient
turning points until travelers were anxious
to go through the door into the chalet with its
green carpet of moss.  The discount welcomed

them, inside, yet there was no great pile
of money and nothing was purchased.  Instead,
after the warmth set in, showing determination,
the man with the pack returned to life on
the wild edge of the land.  After a command to

the sharp creature that had been pacified by the
impressive displays of civilization, the walker
began to trek, and the wandering dog felt self
respect, the beginning of membership.  So, they

belonged to the range, and the traders had plans
to provision them by means of a system of values
arrived to demonstrate available necessities and
equities conceived in the course of bargaining.

This general aspiration was accompanied by the
taciturn response thought to be more pleasant
than the argument and ill will.  Prosperity had
been created by serving fate and nature rather
than by transferring property to a singular pit.
The result was an expectation of good deals and
reliable assistance.

Within the forms of the ledges and ridges,
threads of the feeble breezes tried to confer
and draw forth, as their explanation, an
acceptance through traveling with companions
who did not reject the powers of conversation,

held within the scenery and handed across
without any alarm or voice of awakened
hostility.  The rejection was strong enough to
stay in sight as the hovering screech of the
necessary owl.  Watching the bird, the
creature of the steps above the spiral arm
seemed to be at liberty to discover the gentle
voices swirling through the mist.  While the

division of the stars proceeded to wash the
scaffold free of a slow moving controversy,
the remaining voices presented rambling

rings and the stripes of planets.  It was late in
the evening.  Swirling spots remained to be
counted, an expense that provided sustenance
to families of flowers and the wafted powers
of pollen as seeds with mechanical metal
threaded between one nebula and the next.

The waves tossed a small barn up onto the edge
of the mountain but used reassuring words to
surround the animals allowing them to travel
comfortably.  Conversation usually included any

of the stars that were emerging from the
entertainment field.  These had been packed,
carefully, with the necessary, spare parts and
albums filled with memories in photographs.
Frequent glances wore a familiar trail between

the shelter and the edge where moss cascaded
like rivers of joy moving among the banks of
grass, carrying the hulls, like fish, through
channels into the city.  Acutely reminded that
serious people would be encountered before the
ages ended, the mice were nice and did not
tempt the birds into flights and attacks.  The
exception to this was hunger which ruled the
loyalty of the rodent population.  Any, of the
gathering, with reddish fur cast a shadow down

the stairway lit, as it always had been, from the
tremendous stellar flights that were lost, as
sparks above the dark chimney, the matter in
charge of all convection for a reasonable and
eternal distance into the mine.

Frightful abilities were pressured into
responses as the computer children
failed at hitherto reliable performance.
This was a description of the synchronous
effect brought into the shudder with a
catch in the breath of the mother,

and written by frenetic action that
destroyed the logical sequence of requests
presented by the mouse and the typing keys.

As directed through an esoteric process of
recovery, the minds of the device reoriented,
again attaining the ability to perform simple
and repetitive tasks as obliged by designated

prompts.  There was no certainty this was not
related to the telephone connection which
picked thinking out of the air like a television
receiving a network broadcast.  In the same

way, the exhaust pipe rambled as the engine
of the truck idled too rapidly and, then,
stalled.  Everything was restarted.  The vehicle
operated right away.  The computer bumbled
along flashing through scenes and blank screens,
the curser pulsing like a heart beat in the upper
corner.  This had to be worn like a sign of
concentration, meaning that the (citizen, computer)
was being observed, and the sensitive response
would be, literally, automatic, but sometimes
the potentiometer brought, to sight, a gesture
of communication.  It was cute that such clever
trinkets were hiding down in there until the

spirit tapped the muscles of the shoulder blade.
It became apparent this relation depended upon

keys found in ancient aliens such as arcades and
magic books.  A tiny soul was stored in a pocket,
in the telephone; it reached out with its vibration
and launched into the world to grab news with
its operating, search engines.  It had eyes and
could see in the dark.  So, the age was over in
which it could be expected that photographs were
the result of special manners and the courageous
offer of friendly snapshots.  As torches confused

ferocious animals, the excuse depended upon dark
difficulties in the chemical room.  In the garden,
the televised betrayal generated a crossfire of live
video, and, thus, fools were unlucky.  Energy and
conflict had been misguided.  New, public devotion
protected the evolution of tableware or discrete
implements that chimed to be taken into other rooms.
Discourse was enabled and following discursion,
long, private moments carried visitors away.

Heat From the battle was traced to the shrill noise in the cavernous, wooden structure.  Its foolish doors were open to the base of the walls; a gulch of formidable blasts flowing with the dark energy tossed, like waves of air, to tremble with the violence of a secret thought.  It was protested that such designs were not very friendly, but the spirit crouched and did not like the room, complaining that the herds were given enough space for migration, while everyone else had only the edge of the shade to stand in for protection from the thrilling events by which the chicken wire began to unravel.  Or, rather, it was gently coiled and sent to a different corner of the experimental machine.  Time was influencing the organization, while the argument continued to bounce dust off the shelves and ledges.  The tools hanging against the boards were clanking and rattling.  The stage presented them with light shining across their faces and through the feathers or the thick fur.  Few of the animals had on harnesses or raincoats, but there was no doubt that the wild party had spilled into the telephone where individuals wandered as if looking for a specific person, a man in charge of his, privately sculpted destiny.  Perhaps, they sought his wife.  Freely, they inhabited foreign planets, moving from each, primitive barn, returning to the familiar boards and planks of the theoretical device, the refuge of the couple, with its pulleys and gears.  Care was taken that both of the great buildings were similar and could be interchanged, but one of them was always in the meadow where the two lived.  The other wandered across the mountain tops always attracting curiosity.  The expectation was that, soon, the arm would find itself crowded by a multitude of them.  The roads were not designed to carry the weight of such traffic, and as the gasoline turned into paint thinner, the ladies began to admire the polish on their nails.  The men were pounding as if they were hammering nails of iron.  When the alternatives had been examined, a company of claws chose the primitive way and walked in single file along the ridge.  They could feel the grip of the burlap and wanted to gaze deeply into the star fields.  Ignoring the fight as the splinters flew away from disintegrating boards, they calmly sharpened themselves and stood at the edge to have photographs taken with their own cameras.  Millions of these images became famous throughout the entire province.  The winner of the conflict received a gold medal.

No tragedy distorts the imaginary result,
of working to improve upon the past,
where steam ran the dynamos and, now,
as it powers dreams, they are only models.

The escape is from the tragedy, inherent in
the machines, to claim the victory of new,
beautiful mechanisms that are not rusty in
the presence of companionship between

mother and daughter.