‘if you tell me it’s a gift’
For a minute I imagined
something other than exclusion.
I can face the winter,
adapt to its binding,
but these other ropes are in everyone’s hands but my own,
and tight enough to draw the blood toward the skin
every time I reach the end and snap back into
my proper place again.
Too long to force a fit,
and only stifling depletion left —
it was an easing,
but no thaw,
and I left the bootprints behind to wander wild
where we are soon overwhelmed
by its weight
and its weightlessness.
And then the wind gets mean —
a reminder that the only way to keep on
is to keep on,
and how stillness is the sweetest gift.
12.20.16
(28/15)
coyote tracks — lots — all the way around. lots of paths cutting around the south overlook. goldfinch. self-examination. half moon heading west. light and dark and cold. it is long, but it’s still alive. striation of snowdrift reflects striation of blue sky on the windy hill where the snow’s untouched. how the wind pushes us along. can’t be still too long. redtailed hawk up in the wind. the wind. everything the wind. 4 starlings. sharpshinned hawk. and here is where I almost always see my first indigo buntings… in may? in june? don’t think about the summer. blue heron, like an old man. 5 cardinals. 7 song sparrows. mourning dove. chickadees. all the mallards. all hunkered down.
Notes:
Quote 1: (a gift): Fiona Apple / ‘Fast as You Can’ from When the Pawn… (1999)
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 