Burnt
‘…if you want me to burn…’
Taciturn and tempted,
this silence requires spaciousness,
and even walking is an act of rebellion.
I bury my mouth and its words in the dirt,
here in the low, wet, thawed places.
You must always carry these:
matches, paper, ink, long eyes, blood, bone, stone,
and those thin woven threads that reach out into it
and beyond and back to you again —
how a bluebird is first again,
how what remains unspoken
doesn’t remain unknown.
Even as the sun
watches you kneel by the river,
folding words into a boat to sail downstream.
Even as the moon
(sleepy eyes)
sees you press words into a crane to cast into the fire.
Look at him.
High in the cold face of the wind.
How he turns into it and,
jubilant in his melancholy,
makes a music.
2.5.17
(38/25)
‘you’re still hanging out in my dreams’
and indeed, though windy and colder than expected, a bluebird is first. an overlook flock. do they move again in the spring? possibly. the swallows might drive them away. little jerks. coyote scat. heard a woodpecker of some sort, but too bright to see. and I still have a headache if I stop and think about it. I hear a robin now too, and here’s a redtailed hawk. is a day when everything draws the attention to just one more thing. voice along the thread, in the wind. i’ll leave the bad head behind. oh, how i adore you, my Sun. mesmerized. how we can never find it. moon doing its waxing thing again. home. i suppose overcoming inertia — or succumbing utterly — must be at least a step in that direction. parasitic plants. robins in the mixing bowl. song sparrows. crows at the top of the hill. find a quarter and remember the lesson: how it is wrong to turn your back on wealth offered by the gods. mallards, hunkered out of the wind. kingfisher. more mallards. canada geese. the mergansers — 2 male, 3 female. noisy noisy geese.
Notes:
Quotes: (‘burn’ and ‘hanging out’): Nick Cave + the Bad Seeds / ‘Give Us a Kiss’ from Give Us a Kiss (EP, 2014)
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 