August 8 /3:15/lc

A perfect sickle hidden in the moon's bowl.  To the West: fire. To the South: Black mountain, blue sea.

I've just reread a story by the late Jugoslavian writer, Danilo Kis: A young girl holds a mirror in her palm. And she sees everything before it even happens.

B writes from the desert outside Las Vegas: "It's 115...and I'm aching for love." He sends me a poem about a rhinoceros so happy because he doesn't know to call it that.  

As a child my great-grandmother told me the story of Padre Pio: "He can read what is in your heart before you even know..."

Walking to the tram this morning I saw an older woman in a shimmering sea green sequined prom dress—circa 1950s—and sparkling purple open-toed pumps, go into the lahudky on the corner. I followed her. She stood on line, oblivious to the grim stares queuing behind her. She ordered 200 grams of potato salad and a rolichy ( a small crescent roll), and took her plate over to the counter and began to eat ravenously.  

I reread the story and thought This is the seventh dimension: this is revolving just out of sight of your own skin.

Montenegro is gearing up for war. Analysis from the World Service:  "If it comes it will be brother against brother. Civil and bloody."

The happy rhinoceros must be his son. As he's having a hard time of it: the miserable heat, the thought that perhaps he'll not find love again.
  
And then they cut each other down. And she was asked: Why not warn them, knowing this?

The white rhino is one of  the rarest animals in the world - as men hunt them - for their horn, for the promise of virility. There are, perhaps, only 40 of these magnificent beasts left, and most of those in captivity - where it might be safe to assume they aren't exactly happy.

I watched her. Imagined she'd gone swimming half a century ago, among the purple mussels of  an ancient secret sea lying under this landlocked country, and had only now come up for air.

What will they do with her? Cut her down to size.

I said, "How can he know that? How can he know what is in my heart?" "He has the god's body," she said. "At three in the afternoon his hands bleed."  

I wrote him right back. I said, "Tell me about it."

This is the month they reap the red wheat. This is the month they whet the stone, sharpen sickles.

There's a little white rhinocerous running around Bohemia: they have more luck breeding these rare creatures here than anywhere else in the world.  

The brotherless sister glances in the mirror.  She is asked "What have you seen there?" , to which She replies, "A sliver of moon."

In that mirror = sickles, men of straw, it isn't pretty.

She walked out of the lahudky. When you went out after her, to look for her, she was gone. She rose from the sea where there was no sea: but her: shimmering, sea green .