Month: September 2019

‘Save Me’

We move in strange directions,
like the rain’s taken a turn over the lake.
We hope it waits,
but we’ll risk it and our long eyes
for a chance at unfamiliar.

And I could say that I am no angel.
And you could say that you are no savior.
We could lie and lie and lie,
as if words meant nothing.

But I want to feel what you feel.
And I want you to know what I know —
how I was wrong about not-needing.

There might be nothing solid or steady
about the water’s surface:
The visitors come and stay
or come and go —
lucky days, lucky weeks, lucky months or more.
And yet,
there is an undeniable force of permanence.

This is where we place our faith.

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9.29.16
(64/59, windy)

blue jay. judgement vs. strength. the lion waiting in the dream. walnuts join the cottonwoods, both brazen, unlike the oaks that wait until the last minute for a subtle blaze. asters seem to love this weather best. when did the redwings go, or did they? 11 robins disappear in your direction. sun fighting the edge of a storm. looks like it could turn any second. my shirt is buttoned crooked. is it still possible for people to become things just because they want to become those things? emily dickinson, naturalist? if we could only shake the clock. milkweed bugs. you have to accept that you will die before you’re done. goldfinches have completely changed color now. i want to tell the truth. walk out to stand among the bluestem. it takes little time to disappear. i can’t tell who’s indulging whom now. the rain is going to catch me, but i have to see if the pelicans are gone yet. redwing. 3 cormorants. 8 egrets. 2 blue herons. 5 wood ducks. 2 sandhill cranes. 23 canada geese. 19 white pelicans.

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about fieldnotes

fieldnotes was written at the Marsh beginning Sept. 26, 2016 and ending near the same time in the following year, collected in memo books over the course of many rambling walks.
Beginning on Sept. 26, 2019, three years after the writing, fieldnotes will be published in its entirety, with posts appearing as the corresponding write-dates occur.
(at least to the best of my ability)

Solace

Cold front grabbed midnight’s wheel to turn the season on its side.

(milkweed pods beginning to burst – crickets and locusts in a long diminuendo – goldenrod thrives and fades – how we love this vulnerability – purple aster, white aster – everything a suncatcher today)

Thinking of Judgement and recently read —
less the confusion —
we wonder,
why not sooner seek solace?

(eight egrets and an entire flock of white pelicans – goldfinches change their clothes – a ragged-winged monarch takes the sun – battered, we serve the wind – chickadee-dee-dee-dee chicory)

(( i need new shoes and socks ))

Anchored by awkward age.

(one-two-three eagles wheel past – nakedeye – cottonwoods gone close to bone)

One feels a minute mechanism —
within some vast,
some elaborate,
some exquisite machinery —
so huge as to be almost hidden.

(cattails above take the wind – hard to imagine the winter that would bend them)

The more we come to know,
the more impossible it is to lie.

And we are so constrained:
by myth of time,
by myth of map,
by myth of wheel,
by myth of mind,
by myth mystic and myth mundane.

Unborn,
unhatched,
we are seed just taking the wind,
and we want to believe
in comprehension,
in capability,
but it takes a season of sleep to arrive.

And if the sleepy winter is a womb,
might it not also be
the fertile soil of our dreaming?

And oh!
(that dream) —
how it shook me like the earth unbound,
how the aftershocks still take me unaware:

a vision of tender,
reclined and bare,
head in warm dry hands,
cheek to chest —

there, there.

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9.26.16
(69/57, windy)

moon and sun share sky. bluejay alarm. tricky fall warblers. red tops of sumac. leaves flame and ash. calling the wind. for real this time. socks full of seeds. horseweed. goldenrod. aster. cuckoo. snakeroot. cedar waxwings. mourning cloak. smells like carrot leaves. oh! osprey! poison ivy. joe pye weed, fuzzy topped in the filtered sun. eastern comma.

“Anglewings are some of the only North American butterflies to overwinter as adults, crawling into cracks in trees or manmade structures.”
–Jeffrey Glassberg, Butterflies of North America

The 7 Species of Anglewings:
-Question Mark
-Eastern Comma
-Gray Comma
-Green Comma
-Hoary Comma
-Oreas Comma
-Satyr Comma

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about fieldnotes

fieldnotes was written at the Marsh beginning Sept. 26, 2016 and ending near the same time in the following year, collected in memo books over the course of many rambling walks.
Beginning on Sept. 26, 2019, three years after the writing, fieldnotes will be published in its entirety, with posts appearing as the corresponding write-dates occur.
(at least to the best of my ability)