c____a__r__a______n__u___s__a blueberries for you i built a hut in the woods behind my house when i was fifteen, just took branches that had fallen from trees during storms, discarded waste that were gifts to me. set them up against a triangle of sturdy oaks and made a secret place to crawl inside and get away from the crumbling mess my life was. somehow when i went inside that dark shandy, the light was bright, as if i was stepping inside my soul and finding it was here that things were solid, and real, and free from destruction. i set up a small fire pit out of stones i found at the stream and would sit and cook rainbow trout wrapped in foil, read thoreau, and name my own world, make maps, become a hero in a land that needed me. it was the 6th of october. one day after school, when my parents had been fighting again and i had pulled my drunken father off my bruised mother. i walked away, to the stream, to that seclusion that swallowed sadness, that turned tears to raindrops that did not fall from swollen eyes but from heavy leaves that could no longer support the weight. i sat by the water in the fading light of another day when i sensed a flash of brilliance behind me. i turned. it was as if someone had turned a flashlight on for a brief moment and then shut it off, yet the effulgence was earthy and seemed to be sucked back into the ground. it seemed to have a voice attached. a call i did not hear with my ear, but within. so, i stepped into early fall's chill, through the spider-webbed queen anne's lace and past the droopy=headed goldenrod, under the maples turning colours, up to a field i named hollyendontool. it was at the top of the world, where i could gaze up at the pictures clouds formed and look down on my village and gain perspective. put things in order. realize it wasn't me that was fucked up. when i reached the top, i could no longer sense the light, but there was a dog i had never seen before. white, long-haired, very friendly. she skipped up to me smiling and placed her yielding muzzle in my hands. i talked to her, asked her, like humans do with animals, where she was from, why she came, and i thought up the answers. and then i just began this soliloquy. it was as if i was vomiting forth all the misery that was storing up inside of me from living at home, from my fighting parents, my nothing existence, bringing forth all the self deprecation that sickened my heart. cleansed, i began to dance with the white dog. something clicked. the sound of chains breaking. a soul set free. when i turn to celebrate with the white dog, she was gone. i frantically searched the surrounding area. it wasn't that she ran off and i could chase her, for in the moment i turned away to receive this sudden epiphany, she could not have had enough time to go. she simply vanished. disappeared. was she sent? did i make her up? to this day, of course, i don't know. but, every october 6, i celebrate cArAnusA. it was the beginning of a happiness that has never left me. a perpetual spring of mirth, the ability to see the beauty under the disguise. happy white dog day. 011006 what's it to you? who go blather from