This morning biking under helicopters to get to work I practiced the meditation technique I made up where I pretend by pedaling I am the single source generating the happiness all living things feel, the way a bike would light a lightbulb. I avoid the buildings that are on fire, flow past objects graffitied with words about mattering. On a section of trail along the river I’m away from enough people who might exhale a thing that can kill me and whoever I love, so I lower my mask. Wet earth, wet bark, damp leaves. Beautiful. Wonderful. Mask back up. Last evening, walking with our dog, I waved at the neighbor digging in her garden. When we arrived back home she said, “Sorry if I was weird earlier, I was just thinking about the murder and I’m sad.” Reading faces covered with cloth is something we’re all getting better at. The only place to look is the eyes, which may look the way they do because of pepper spray, which is this very moment running off into the river the way something in us runs off into it, then hurries back to tell us what it was like. And so, River, let me at least try to promise you the burning of buildings and eyes and your ecosystem will resolve. And you, Ground Along The Water, let’s say the knees we take on you will give us rest.