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)
looking for roots 