Writing Time

        “Some things cannot be repeated,” I read just now in a list of phrases from Saramago’s Journey to Portugal I use for starters once in a while. What mystery in Hillsdale might Saramago’s statement lead me to, I wondered, writing it down. Around what corner, after which thirty steps, above the manhole on what crossroads? How many times, I wrote, echoing something I’d written many years before, must I walk down the street, to see what’s in it for me?
        Such deliberations didn’t even last as long as it took to write them down, thanks to the man with the weed-whacker and its short, noisy bursts below my apartment window in Vigo.

        It’s a heavy-duty model, which he swings in slow arcs back and forth over the uneven terrain down there, as if divining for precious metal. Seems to me I heard him yesterday, and the day before. I threw my spoons into the sink.  Hasn’t he found anything yet?

        Last night it was the dog, so-and-so’s dog who lives downstairs. It’s a placid and silent creature all day until about the time the Spaniards sit down for the dinner and the Canadians settle into bed. Then little Viper lets loose with an hour and a half’s worth of vibrant yap that pings off the concrete and through open windows and back. Repeating, after me.
        Now silence. The man carries his whacker away—a bit sadly, if I’m not mistaken.