AMANDA...

Sometimes she sits silent, staring at the fire. Her cheeks half-lit pale. She's looking at something in the fire. Something warm. Something thta reminds her of home. Is it with me? Is it in the way she she brushes her hair each night? I watch her, but try not to get caught. She doesn't want me to see her, as she sits. She doesn't want me t0 notice her. Her life, I guess. As she lives it. Everry moment is important to me. Me paying attention to it gets away from her actual living...

But together, as a unit, we are calm, we are spaced evenly. Her fingers reach for a piece of yarn. (Because she sews)... And I see them reach... just like I watch her walk to church... erect... solid, stoic, her eyes focused on the church door.

These moments I try to preserve. But I can't, really, because I cannot capture Amanda. You can't bottle a butterfly. You can't measure goodness...

When I nod at the fire, it's because I think of her, as well, her... full, alive, breathing, looking through those green eyes stabbing me... and I want to cling to that moment... to see her life, really as a gift, something that I 'm lucky to be around for...

COLLECTING FIREWOOD

Amanda and I collected this woodpile. It took a long time. We began in the fall, just when the weather turned and I could see her breath in the air.

We'd cart the wood from the nearby forest. We used a small wheel barrel. Some of it we collected from fallen trees. I chopped them. Then she'd load the wheel barrel. When I'd get tired, we'd switch. She'd chop and I'd load.

As we worked, she'd steal a glance towards me. A peripheral glance. It only lasted a second or two. Was it love? Was it mutual appreciation? Happiness? Satisfaction? Hard work? After all, she made the decision to quit the flats and move up here with me. Actually, sorry, we both made the decision.

And time has begun to move slower for us. I no longer get the pains in my chest. I may be covered in flour when I come from the bakery. But it goes away when I come home to the cabin and I see her brushing her hair by the fire. Her dirty blond red/orange/brown hair. The cabin throws shadows and I can see only black really besides the window of fire and her hair and apple white skin glowing like ivory, a shivering mist around her. I listen to the repeitious shish sound through her hair. She's very meticulous about it. Shish, shish, shish...

I sit by the fire and take my boots off. Rub my aching toes, placing them near the flame. The circular throw rug, knotted and tangled beneath my feet. Tingling them. I feel the same good feeling well up from my stomach. Like a syrup spreading through my body. Coating me. I begin to doze. Shish, shish, shish, her back to me.

I see an immense field of roses. Mostly red, dotted with green. I lie in them and watch the sky. I won't even scratch that ant off me. Miles of red on green. A red carpet. Like Amanda's cheeks after wood cutting. Like her favorite red sweater or church dress. Mile after mile of red carpet, covering the world.

AMANDA'S HAIR

On Saturday's when I work hard at the bakery and I think of all my troubles, the long trek home, the snow piled up, the bills, my enemies trying to destroy me... I think of Amanda's hair.

This isn't Amanda, but it's very close to her hair color. I said blond before. I was wrong. I suppose parts of it are blond, others brown, orange depending on the light. Perhaps even red at times. Mostly brown/blond though.

The hair has to start one color and end another. Sometimes when I shave and the water mists the cabin, and I rub the mirror to see, but I can't because it's so misty and foggy, absently, bored, I'll amuse myself by plucking a hair from her brush. The red one right next to the toilet, and I draw it out lengthwise in the light to see it... not to worship it, but to admire... I'm fascinated by how it changes tones 6 inches in, and then seems to lighten or become orange by the tip...

She cut her pony tail. That was a big deal, part of growing up. She placed the chopped off hair in a plastic baggy. I'd stare at it in the bag before bed. 2 1/2 feet of blond/brown/orange hair notted together. She saved it. Her pony tail. A message from her youth. It's stored in the black trunk next to her vanity.

CHURCH

It's nearly time to walk to church. For midnight mass. Amanda and I hold hands. The sun is going down. I see the orange on her face lighting the small bond hairs. Her eyes are crystal. Green. Her hands are small, feeling digits, pointed and regal. Each step we make dents the snow. Undisturbed in the graveyard. Last night it snowed about 4 inches, settling a blanket on my dead relatives. Warming them as they rest and rot beneath the ground.

The horses pull by. I cling to herhand. I watch her breath draw in and out exhaling blue air. The sounds of other couples making their way in. We are silent.

Her eyes are green. There may be some brown or hazel too perhaps. But they are bright. They sparkle. We head towards the yellow light of the church door. Where it is warm. Pastor has a fire going. It's cozy. Lazy. Red.

Amanda's dress is this color. I don't know if it's appropriate for mass. It's lush and like satin. Almost darker than this photo. She has a small red hat covering her hair which she has done in a bun. Her shoes black. Her purse black.

I wear solid black. My black shoes melting the snow beneath me. We crunch up the steps. Soon we will pray earnestly on the oak pews. Worn with grooves. Bleached by time. Soon we will be with our father. Soon...

BACK YARD IN FALL

This is my backyard. I store things in this shed. I need to cut the lawn. Sometimes I stare and watch it turn red. Amanda and I share tea. We make bread together. I pick a purple flower for her. She stops and looks at it a moment. Her green eyes shine. They sparkle. A hint of red dots her face in patches. The suns lights the side of her face orange. We sit on the porch and I hear the slates of the wood bend and creak. The chipped paint tingles the soles of my feet.

I'm lost under the sugar maple. My brains beat out nothing. Listen to it shissh. I trace the path of one yellow leaves tipped towards the sun. The wind blows across the porch and loosens it. It softly arches in the blue. Sometimes floating up, sometimes curving

sidways, taking its time to join the others beneath our feet. It doubles back struggling to stay afloat. I see Amanda register this. Her lips part, I can see her teeth. Her pupils dilate and I know she feels nothing too.

LOG CABIN HOME IN THE SNOW

I have to get through many miles of snow to get here. On my my sled. Amanda's face is red. Red on her white cheeks. She's wearing a LL Bean sweater. And little flecks of snow are stuck in it. I can smell the damp. We pull the sled. Another mile to go. The snow is thick, milky, and heavy. It sticks to the pines. I feel tingles. I am relaxed. Amanda breathes out white puffs of air. A finch lands on the pine branch. His feet become wet with snow. The boughs are weigheed down. Bendinrg under the weight.

My boots are thick. Our packages are secure. Up the trail. We will make the cabin light up yellow. Her face half lit. By the fire. I'll get a cord of wood from the fire pit next to the cottage. Stacked in neat triangles. I rub my belly by the fire. The tingle feeling has not left.

This moment is forever. She's weearing black jeans. She pulls her boots off. Rubs her small feet, red on the bottoms. The flap of dirty blond hair falls across her face again. Tyhe fire burns red/yellow/orange.

LOG CABIN

I will live here with Amanda.
She will help me install the green slat roof. We will have a horse hair broom. We will worry about drafts through the cool summers. It will blow her dish water blond hair away from her face. She will be calm. I will live forever. She will love forever. Through the back yard I see the chickens, the pigs, the horses, the hens... next to my log cabin home we will grow an immense oak... in the fall when I'm calm it will rain down yellow, orange, red, brown vieny leaves... on the stoop, on the dirt floor. Amanda will sigh, and wipe dirt across her brow, flushed from the fire, a stand of loose hair falling across her face...