Month: April 2020

Refuge

Windsinger,
fire-eater.
We keep the reins and ride the tempest,
but it all comes loose again
as a steady rain settles in.

And spring wants to say,
I am not summer.
Take it in —
how what is wild in us remains so.
How our fingers are cold.

Alone under a caving roof,
deafened by its quiet rhythm,
I don’t care if it were only a dream —
a tender vein to divert a swollen river.
And I don’t care
if I too become something needed.

Your words were my words.
You drew an accidental map.
I stumbled into that refuge and —
though I know North like a magnet —
lost myself.

---

4.27.17
(62/42)

redwings. goldfinches. wind singer. fire eater. robins, cardinals. swallows over the marsh. gray and cold. more spring than winter or summer. it still sings with chorus frogs. canada geese. pied-billed grebe. little spots of rain. coldish. greening well along among the wet old browns of last year’s weeds. song sparrow. yellow warbler! clouds low and fast with bright blue sky that wants to break through. flicker. the grass long enough for waves. rain of wild crabapple petals. tree sparrow. pair of bluejays. the Sun! the Sun! a flock of chattery goldfinches. field sparrows. bluebirds. palm warbler. little miniature forests of mayapples. yellow-rumped warbler. tree swallows and barn swallows. lily pads starting to pop out of the water. mallards. redtailed hawk. wild turkey! handsome. red trillium still blooming. little sprays of wild geranium. tree sparrow. ‘love is a rose.’

Notes:
Quote 1: (rose): Neil Young / on Decade (1977, but first recorded in 1974, by Neil. And by Linda Ronstadt in 1975)

---

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)

In the Bone

…’When you wake up feeling old’…

In the vague waning of half a pink moon,
we lean into the cut of spring’s slow green blade,
to refine,
again,
the soft and hard edges,
and uncross those wires —
a Boundless connection —
its overwhelming sweet.

Make the best of it, you said.
But come on.

Commit your sorrowful researches to those dogeared pages in your pocket.
Pour something out.
Burn something up.
Meet us where we Live.
Make it real.

---

4.18.17
(76!/42)

redwings. REDWINGS! robins. golden crowned kinglet. swallows. tree sparrows. chorus frogs. song sparrow. cardinals. two red admirals. flowering things overwhelming with sweet today. bluejay. all kinds of things heard and not seen. meadowlark. goldfinches — lots! brown thrasher! chickadees. towhee. cowbird. cabbage white. a very curious white-tailed deer. purple and white violets and dandelions a blanket of yellow. flock of cowbirds. grackles. fat blue dragonfly. lots of trees flowering. even the oaks starting. mayapples opening their umbrellas. my cormorant. turkey vulture. bluebird. two coopers hawks. marsh marigold. ruby crowned kinglets. tree sparrow. yellow violets. bloodroot. twinleaf. spring azure. rue anemone. northern flicker. bellwort. downy woodpecker. mourning cloak. redbuds and crabapples.

Notes:
Quote 1: (feeling old): Wilco / ‘When you wake up feeling old’ from Summerteeth (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)

Eleventh

He brings me crocodile tears,
and her number is up.
It’s time to remember what it’s worth,
being here.
Go down to where the story is born,
down along the muddy bone
of the animal body,
before the cleansing and bleaching
of weather and sun.

It is a spring thing —
an ebbing contraction —
a receding darkness —
how we swim up from our shipwrecks —
how the wind is a gift of song —
a new shore,
a new language,
a new landscape,
with all the Living left to learn.

---

4.13.17
(59/44)

bluebirds. tree swallows. noisy redwings. circling vultures. chorus frogs. little flock of kinglets. lots of vultures. tree swallows. blue heron. cardinal. more kinglets. another heron. blue jay. peeper. I keep getting bad days for butterflies out here, but at home I’ve seen a mourning cloak and a bunch of red admirals. meadowlark. phoebe. song sparrow. flock of white throated sparrows. robins and redwings and robins and redwings. another meadowlark. downy woodpecker. hermit thrush. smell of wet dirt and green things. turkey vulture. song sparrow. mourning dove. pair of fox sparrows. bluebird. some kind of flycatcher. great horned owl. mallards. flicker. heron in the treetop. song sparrow. skunk cabbage and marsh marigold. coopers hawk. mayapples inching up. toadshade. nuthatches. big flock of coots. chorus frogs. dozens and dozens of swallows over the marsh. pied-billed grebe. tree sparrow. flock of yellow-rumped warblers. little purple violets. twinleaf in little patches.

---

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)

4.4.17
(55/45)

robins. redwings. chorus frogs. swallows starting to get a little aggressive. tree and barn. turkey vulture circling. little flock of gregarious golden-crowned kinglets. ruby-crowned too! 4 piedbilled grebes. tons of swallows over the water. merganser. wood duck. coots. big flock. fox sparrow. pair of flickers. crow. song sparrow. bluebird battling a swallow. cardinals. 3 grackles. redbellied woodpecker. another fox sparrow. chipping sparrow. kestrel showing off. chorus frogs. more kinglets. little flock of song sparrows. flicker. cormorant on the pond. mallards. blue heron – the big guy. close. 2 vultures, low. Eastern wood peewee. wood duck. blue-winged teal.

---

Unknown

…’they told us our gods would outlive us’…

Deep in the core that minds the machinery,
am I myth or monster?
I sing the wind to bend the branch
that holds your scrap of sail —
an old, old story:
the siren’s tyrannical sympathy,
and how it bears the will and whim of dreamers.
How you mastered the tides but not the storm.
How they are greater gods than we.
How they brought you here to sit,
and breathe —
just where Ocean crashes into Other,
back to the waves,
settling in,
I sing the wind and know:
Anything could wait within the distant treeline.

---

4.6.17
(50/38)

sandhill cranes. redwings. song sparrow. chorus frogs. peeper. cardinals. canada geese on a nest. windy! tree swallows. nice to see the sun. chilly though. song sparrow. redbellied. meadowlark? some kind of woodpecker. bluebird. angry swallows. meadowlark! TOO-too-hee-Tee-too. chickadees. song sparrow. river high and fast. white throated sparrow. kestrel low in the old man’s branches. flicker. nuthatch. vernal pool. so many frogs! bluebird. carp in the creek.

Notes:
Quote 1: (gods): Nick Cave + Bad Seeds / ‘Distant Sky’ from Skeleton Tree (2016)

---

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)