D.O.P.-T. (yesterday)

An apple was lying in the gutter. Store-bought, by the looks of it. I left it for the creatures, many of which were busy, at the start of a lovely blue-skied day. At dawn I watched a cloud of pigeons wheeling in spirals over El Camino, fragments of the flock breaking off to perch in a string along the arm of a streetlight, then another fragment knocking some of them loose to wheel around again, until finally they were all settled on four different lights. Above and behind them, crows and increasingly more seagulls passed by, flying fast, more and more seagulls converging on the McDonald's, where garbage was evidently starting to be put out, or food spilled by bleary-eyed breakfast customers. Later in the morning I walked to the library to return books and on the way back, photographed the remaining fall leaves in the sunshine; squirrels were wreathing themselves around trees and lolloping across the grass with acorns in their mouths, I saw a well chewed avocado in the shrubbery, and a hawk soared in the sky above the little ornamental cherry trees and the tall sweetgums; I tried my best to snap it but I don't think I managed it. And then a block from home, what looked to me like termites swarming around the eaves at the side of a house, where the kitchen extension joins on. I snuck away quietly.