Month: August 2020

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When you think the falling finished,
you find it’s just begun.

You changed your face,
leaned back in your chair,
turned over one hand and I was caught.

The effect of gravity —
balanced on the wire between yourself and the world,
and fanning the flame of a disastrous crash.

We put on a good show.
We say what is true,
but behind a facade.
Eyes lowered.

Kicking and stomping where no one can see I get heartsore and I mean sore of heart like a bruise tender to touch and a pulling tide so fierce I look for the rope to break.

So I lie and say what never will be,
because the never already is,
even if only obliquely.
And the cottonwoods are half gone —
at once, as it is with me.
I stopped and started giving it all up.
I stopped and started giving it all away.

We are still closer to the moon than the sun-our-one-true-love.

How you arrived in its final crescendo.
How I followed behind, in the fade.

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8.22.17
(81/66, windy)

chickadees. blue heron. sandhill crane. wood ducks and grebes. bluejay. baby bunnies, still. goldenrod’s just about to pop, here. gray and lovely. cool and breezy. a catbird. little group of kingbirds. robins. hummingbird. sun for a second. fuzzy fluffy thistles. raspberries done. ghost in a daydream. indiangrass blooming. goldfinches. walnuts starting to turn. leopard frog. coopers hawk. huh… a woolly bear.

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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)

The Stranger Kind

It is something to find them —
those who still look and see good.

Good black soil for our stranger seeds.

Erosion is inevitable,
but no negative force.

One sun comes and we are at odds with it.
Another sun shines on the beauty in its wake.

It is something to feel it —
how the wire lights bone and blood,
their hungry roots —
how we get hooked.

The uncomfortable predators.
The feast that can’t be forced.

One moon comes and we are taken with it.
Another shines on the beauty in its wake.

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8.15.17
(82/68)

bluejays. an oriole. grebes. mallards. towhee. juvenile coopers hawk? field sparrow.
(myself to myself: if you want to walk into these dense weeds, you’re going to get wet.)
(myself back to myself: so what? you’ll dry.)
goldfinch in the thistle. bluebirds in the walnuts. dragonflies and dragonflies. more field sparrows. a catbird. fox sparrow. big bluestem flowering. smells sweet. 2 monarchs. field sparrows eating the raspberries, which are fading. not many sweet ones left. at the pond, a heron wades and turtles sunbathe. I scare some frogs. Swallowtail.

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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)

Higher

I don’t like it,
but can’t pretend that nothing comes of it.

So maybe you can miss me.
Maybe you can make something of missing me.
A near miss,
and then you must miss me.

I am not stepping on spiders or caterpillars.
I meant what I said, about bad bones.
(Did you think this was shallow water?)

Is it breaking a rule to relent?
Who falls first?

(You think it is you.
I think it is me.)

That’s how we get higher,
and stay so,

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8.10.17
(83/62)

prairie coneflower. queen annes lace. goldfinches. the august things. a bright yellow sulphur. catbird. bee balm. cicadas and wind in cottonwood. locusts. how august is simultaneously lazy and urgent. robins. some of the summer visitors already gone, but just beginning to get migratory. all of it. and all of us with it, were it as it should be. this is the transition. maybe this time i can weather it well. barn swallows. bluebird atop the mullein. goldenrod. my favorite. just starting to open. two hawks. bluejay. sparrows singing. purple coneflower. in the sun the black raspberries make me as sad as the cottonwood seeds. there are definitely fewer swallows. indigo bunting. a monarch. swallowtail. flicker. phoebe. sunflowers. joe pye weed. big snapping turtle. a LOT of snapping turtles. 3 killdeer and 3 swallows. water lilies. silly chickadees. indigo bunting. buggy, but much less so. bluebird. redwings also conspicuously absent. flock of cedar waxwings in their usual place. mallards. white egret. cormorant. flock of robins. little blue butterfly.

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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)

Sovereign

You were talking so much from both sides of your mouth,
you never could hear what I said.
So this is the crucible.
This, the crux.
Now,
in the golden month,
I listen to listen to the lion.
Embrace sovereign ferocity,
but tenderly,
tenderly so.
Resist, without cruelty.

I want to be in the body unseen,
sovereign.
I want to be in the body,
unseen.

Sovereign, monarchs in the milkweed,
a source of light within,
a lingering but continual movement forward
toward the source.
Migratory.
We are wind- and storm-battered,
and still unfinished.

Two faces never stopped talking,
and I wore the forked moon like a crown.
Sovereign,
I still could not make him hear me.

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8.3.17
(83/65)

i am too angry to see or hear birds. but soon this place will center me again. begin with cicadas, high in the oaks. let the sound drown out the other. and now, here and there. cardinal. goldfinch. it is too bright. the birds are all just silhouettes. bird facades. I cannot distinguish. meadowlark. bobolink. blue jay. thistle and mullein and dragonflies. song sparrow. sulphur. robin. bluebird. another bluebird. dripping sweat. goldfinches fearless and close. the berries are the perfect ripe. like the fluffy seeds, I want to share them. patience. patience. towhee. goldfinches. prairie coneflower and bee balm. a very big swallowtail. mosquito bite. there will be more. anger and relenting. there will be more. unforgiven, there will be more.
and you,
you spoil me, so I miss you. cormorant. purple martin. water lilies. i get dizzy standing. you couldn’t wait for waking. and I can find you easy.
Tanager. joe pye. goldenrod almost ready.
almost ready.
say the words. say it with me.
leave me Alone.

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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)