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,
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.
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 