The rose above the sky, prints of a cat, and a freewheeling derby

The ghost-prints of a cat--two individual paw prints, to be precise--keep reappearing in front of my eyes as I drive in this morning.  After every swipe of the wipers they shimmer there for a fleeting second or two and then disappear as the rain overtakes them.  No idea what the cat had on his feet that left such a lasting imprint on my windshield overnight but its faint and ghostly residue, reappearing with each swipe, haunts my drive like something from a Scooby-Doo cartoon.

There are two musicians/groups I listen to more than any others, enough to have a playlist (each) of their music ready to hand: Sigur Rós and Bruce Cockburn.  Today was a Bruce Cockburn playlist sort of day.  Really good, really familiar music is one way to escape the constant turmoil of the simultaneously most-ridiculous and most-frightening presidential election in living memory (which, unfortunately, is saying something).  The mind, though, has a knack for making order out of random, shifting the magnetic letters on the fridge door into sentences.  Like the last scene in the BBC film of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where pulling the scrabble pieces out of a bag randomly brings up a totally cohesive and totally wrong sentence, this morning's playlist let lyrics leap out at me, pulling me back to thoughts of this election:

Gutless arrogance and rage
Burn apart the best of tries
You carry the weight of inherited sorrow
From your first day till you die
Toward that hilltop where the road
Forever becomes one with the sky 

'Til the Rose above the sky
Opens
And the light behind the sun
Takes all 

    - from The Rose Above the Sky, by Bruce Cockburn

Gutless arrogance and rage, indeed.

Fall in the Pacific Northwest is mostly wet and gray, with scattered days of clear-ish skies. Inconsistent weather, wet but not cold, makes for indecision about what to wear. I'll carry a coat again today, not wanting to wear it because I don't need its added warmth and weight, but knowing I'll probably need its ability to repel rain.  I'm reminded of a poem a wrote, well... at least 35 years ago, Deliverance of Derby:

An inverted wind-blown hat
Lies like a catch-basin under a rain gutter,
Cocked by a passing sidewalk breeze,
Straining to free itself from underneath
Its liquid load. 

Feet passing by in frenzied
Haste, some irresponsibly clad in last season's
Less-warm fashion, splash on through winter's
Rains. One, less agile than its counterparts,
Sets free the hat. 

In a shower of stale rain
The cascading derby dances over the lazy
Foot, drenching it in gratitude,
Then quickly catching upon another
Breeze, off it flies.

Come to think of it, I envy that derby, gratefully cartwheeling down the sidewalk while tossing off the things that worry-weigh it down.  Now I have today's goal fixed firmly in mind.

Today's Playlist (all Bruce Cockburn music):

• The Rose Above the Sky
• Free To Be
• Nicaragua
• You Get Bigger As You Go
• Get Up Jonah