Sunday, May 20, 2018

20 May 2018



I want to write an honest sentence about the photo of an empty chair to the other side of a dark wooden table. The viewer sees a bowl of cereal and a spoon, its handle set to the right of an avocado green bowl, thick white mug of black coffee (half full) between bowl, place mat of mixed colors, and empty chair. Beside the place setting opposite a mussed up cloth napkin. Windows behind the empty chair are blank in early light, a barely visible tree trunk more resembling falling tears than bark. Bryant picked up a thread of Pele's hair from a bed of moss, placed it on his palm beneath his ring. Ring dwarfs hair. One end of the thread is bright silver, the other a tear above a tail of curling black ash. It resembles a tiny hockey stick. His bicycle tires kick up volcanic grit, and the air smells of sulfur. He turned on a video of fissure 20 just as the bed started to shake. Arrived at Volcano golf course when the first explosion happened. His photo comes after the second boom, gray cloud trailing steam. The sky is otherwise blue and clear. Puna's coastal road was closed last night. Lava has reached the sea, sending up clouds of toxic steam. Remember when we walked past the end of Chain of Craters road, molten red flowing into deep blue water, and whales blew columns into air?

--20 May 2018

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