Across the Avenue or Industry and the Old West
A place, a single-story house, a cement yard, a cement sidewalk, a cement gutter, the rubber heels of two Italian leather Chelseas cozied into the right angle of the gutter’s dryness, but the vision across the asphalt avenue, a hacienda, is now seen for the first time from this side of perception.
The sounds of a hotrod tinkerer building another Model-T replica grind along like the machine shop music of an industrial wonderland.
The question was, “What’s he building in there?” and binoculars answered that question, but the grinding, the building, it continues, rain or shine, freeze or fry.
There, in the gutter, with the vision of a hacienda, notes are taken of a black metal gateway and a dirt yard. The black gateway is supposed to be good Feng Shui for the superstitious.
There overgrows a spiny palm, lush with broadly fanning leaves and limbs, for water leaks from a sprinkling system that otherwise never sprays.
The hacienda is home, but the view is from across the ave. Industry and the old west avoid conflict by way of the asphalt avenue and the occasional passerby. With a simple shuffle, the interior becomes exterior, and the view askew.
2012.3.1
