Author: Emily

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.

---

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.

---

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,

---

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)

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.

---

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.

---

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)

5.9.17
(61/43)

goldfinches before the trail. white crowned sparrow. rosebreasted grosbeaks. orchard oriole singing. redwings. cowbirds. cardinal. tree swallows. coyote pup! gangly. chilly. little flock of song sparrows. little flock of white-crowned sparrows. robins. is a green-gray day. spring flowers celebrate the wet. peepers.
the coyote’s growing into his feet disappears over a low hill to hide and watch.
we do not sing to soothe,
but to expose what seethes inside the frayed network
to settle in the bone and Become.
How we are incapable of premeditation,
field sparrows. baltimore oriole.
how silence seems a selfish choice.
i hope you were not worried.
i’ve been expecting the worst.
clockwatchers. mapgazers. preoccupation. preoccupation.
and i love this constant surprise.
‘you’ll be careful not to hide. i’ll be careful not to seek’
bluebird. meadowlark. everything singing. song sparrows and white-crowned again. thrasher. catbird. the air overwhelming sweet. and now dozens of white-crowned sparrows. cardinals. goldfinches. bluejay. baltimore oriole. rosebreasted grosbeak. field sparrows.
bobolinks!
scruffy coopers hawk. tree sparrows. could use some reassurance. will have to settle for muddy feet. 3 cormorants. big blue heron. palm warblers and bluebirds follow in a friendly-feeling way. walk into the woods for a pitstop and find lily of the valley. yellowrumped warblers. red trillium still. wild geranium. mayapples starting to open. big white trillium still going.
there is something i want to be true.
but i never will know it is,
will i?
still,
whether finite or not,
it is nice, for a moment,
to be embodied.

---

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)

Chrysalising

What was that?
I couldn’t quite catch it ‘midst my distraction.
Was it?
Seemed like hope.

I make no secret of how I am to be found.
But there’s none to find.

Tally up each stronger step.
Here comes the sun,
nectar still to sip.

And getting there is easier than you might think.
Don’t reach.
Let silence be silence,
come to fill us up again.

Someday we’ll wake
to inhabit
a new unknown.

---

5.5.17
(60/42)

mourning cloak. song sparrow. redwings. tree swallows. robins. redtail hawk. peepers. cardinals. blue heron. bluebird. a ridiculously gorgeous day. goldfinches. brown thrasher. cowbird. hear a meadowlark and bobolink but can’t see them. too many distracting redwings and swallows. aha! here’s the meadowlark anyway. fox sparrow. field sparrows. friendly. blue heron. couple hawks playing in the wind. bluebird. kingbird. red admiral. the mayapples have mayapples. violets and red trillium. wild geranium. ‘one night the howlin dog cries out lonely life.’ canada geese. cormorants.

Notes:
Quote 1: (howlin dog): Edie Brickell & New Bohemians / ‘This Eye’ on Ghost of a Dog (1990)

---

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)

Our Green Music

Waiting for this —
your healing sun —
I slipped through the door
and out into a gray wind,
but it was still just a ghost in the clouds.

It was 20 years of badluck birthday cake and blind paralysis.

We get too old and see,
but we can still swap our hands to warm them.

Mourning dove follows,
curious.
and the green is best when it’s growing into itself,
our floods not quite clockwork.

Everything that means something
means something else
and more.
We bury our motives —
bare hands in fat black dirt,
cultivated hymns,
mad chants —
when all we want is to be warm.

---

5.4.17
(53/44)

blue herons circling in. spring peeper. redtail hawk. redwings. goldfinches. tree swallows. barn swallow. white egret. the shyest sparrows. baby geese in the inlet. very busy fox sparrow. 2 peepers where the water is high. song sparrow. catbird. meadowlark. goldfinches are busy. oh! a bobolink! (a favorite favorite) cowbirds. bluejay. towhee. field sparrows. walnuts and some of the little spindly oaks starting to leaf out. more cowbirds. chipping sparrow. buzzy. cormorant. white egret. skunk cabbage starting to get big. marsh marigold is done. hundreds of swallows over the river. toadshade. valerian. wild geranium. large-flowered trillium. all the violets.

---

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)

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)