‘… some kind of path …’
October nibbles, adoringly,
but doesn’t bite yet —
(how it is a matter of tolerance,
an easing in to pain)
— its wind pushing our edges.
And I am frightened.
Whether losing my ground to a drought wind
or to the slow, steady erosion of a wet summer,
still I am lessened
(how my right foot tried to send me down the stairs).
It is unhurried.
It is no grand act of the gods.
But it shakes us to our foundation anyway.
And I am lost.
Naming and nameless,
I am lost.
I do all I can do,
and all I can do is let it pull me on and on —
with the promise of bluebirds, with the promise of stained-glass oak leaves, with the promise of winter’s lonely quiet, with the promise of first woodland flowers again, with the promise of it
— changeful and changeless —
and its resistance to definition
and how it lives in the unspoken.
We need not be beholden
to the constraint or myth
of inevitability.
Our living is haphazard.
I have no truck with faith.
Only, a sort of mutuality —
and the deep animal movement of the heart —
how to feel it is to believe.
And how every piece of evidence points to the illusion of the finite.
10.25.16
(53/39)
46 degrees. mostly very cloudy (though the sun came out by halfway round). mitts and woolly hat. vertigo prevention. goldfinches and robins. big flock of cedar waxwings — busy! curious! gregarious! song sparrow. and robins. and robins. and robins. downy woodpecker. a line of clouds like the rungs of a ladder. i’m too tired — soul-tired — for climbing. Feel my bones. Bones like stones. oaks and maples a crazy quilt. sun breaking the clouds. my favorite east-side tree — an old burr oak — most beautiful when bare. its breadth amazing. so quiet, birdwise. the wind in the grass, sun in trees against gray sky. in the tops of the indiangrass. everything feels unreal. watch then scare up a heron on the pond. in the sunlight, in flight, he really does look blue. lands on the other side and stills. we both watch an osprey wing over. kingfisher, heard. and still the river is full of blackbirds. redwing alarm and grackle chuckles. kingfisher, seen. still a few pelicans. 15 or so. some kind of sandpiper. spotted? 4 sandhill cranes chase off a heron.
Notes:
Quote: (some path): Nick Cave + the Bad Seeds / ‘Into My Arms’ from The Boatman’s Call (1997)
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)
looking for roots 