Month: May 2008

A blackboard on which two words are written: “Gateway” and “Orientation.” Backing out of a long tunnel of sleep, a premonition comes which, upon checking email later, turns out to be correct. The thing about grass is, it keeps on growing after you’ve cut it. “That’s a lot of zero’s.”

Within arm’s reach a white crystal bearing many scars, sunglasses that pinch my ears, a wash cloth, a purple ink pen, a dead dandelion, tomato seedlings, Chrisoula’s business phone, artwork by Fionnghuala.

Visible out the window: lilac, a canoe, a car that hasn’t gone anywhere in over a year, an open door.

What if I wrote the twenty sentences over the course of the day instead of just in one sitting? What if I took them seriously? Who says I don’t?

I woke after the sun had risen – was well up in fact – and the light disoriented me. Yet I still had well over an hour to work before anyone else got up. At about 1:30, I stood by the bathroom window looking out into the back yard thinking, in spring and summer, the darkness is different. I want to say it’s lighter but the truth is it’s actually full. Of what? I can’t say exactly. But it’s lush, it shimmers, it has that quality. It’s open somehow, or it contains barely some desire that would consume you.

The chink of spoons against cereal bowls returns me where. Another cup of coffee, weekend chores, my family. Euphoria beckons but I’ve already landed, here, in the twentieth sentence.

In this world – the way it is – the way I am in it – what is forbidden – too little. The royal “we.” Punctuation is a way of scoring a sentence. Or setting the pace. Now I am thinking of Chesterfield, the dip at Route 143 where I used to canoe with my father, and now look for goslings where the parent geese are like sentinels in the flooded grass.

I’d believe you more if you grew lettuce from seeds.

The stack of unread books grows higher and higher. People mistake it for driftwood but no. On the shelf, where the illustrated Grimms was, a gap. “Make for it, as fast as you can.” Where I was happiest, it was coldest, and the dream of you beside me was like some burning benevolent cancer.

An old man, I watch one foot follow the other like albino ants in strictest moonlight. Indulgence is love, one kind anyway, so please, get over it. Yet going there meant acknowledging again a certain loneliness, a certain dissatisfaction. You could hear the fox gnawing its own leg, having a relationship to pain that was otherwise unimaginable. You want proof, you want utter, then have another drink.

We were left with clothes hangers, old poems. It was a visit I wasn’t supposed to make but what else could I do given word of you. Is it true then that in the end all poems – all sentences – eventually arrive, deliver us. Here where again I can feel us on that road, still.

Stars, scattered soap crystals. “Well, ain’t you the gloomiest mister I ever did’ve met.” As soon as I said there was no narrative I realized how little I had learned. What it was was, was a search for three and four syllable words, especially those with “L” sounds in them. Seriously.

Where the road bent north, a cloud of butterflies. Looming, a mountain (named for an affect) longed to be included in a certain letter. There were dried cranberry beans in an old canning jar, coffee grounds, and fresh peaches in wicker basket. But you never left Albany to join me. It was January, so cold that year in Burlington, and all night I walked with the idea of you while snowflakes melted against my neck.

Going west up Sam Hill Road has traditionally meant . . . ghosts. The greenery past the old McCarthy land is “bear country.” Accordingly, we made a travois, a pile of smooth stones, and listened to the river while the sun fell beyond the far line of maples. It was a way to do that, to be “in” desire. And after, well, after. After, I read you Ron Atkinson poems and we discussed the peril inherent in allowing grief a voice.

There was, then, in the tall grass, an antique nail, identified by the shape of its non-pointy end. Pale wild Morning Glory the color of your skin. Is it “garden” or “garter?” he asked seriously, there in the forest. It was a bridge crumpling, I answered, and we are watched most carefully by an aged bruin dreaming of an enormous lake.

Face north and that’s different. The dip that a swallow makes as it arcs. Count to ten when you finish a sentence then quickly write whatever comes to mind. A nest is an example of exquisite engineering. Do trees shed their leaves in winter so more sun will reach the ground, is that what Mother Nature had in mind. Father Night, Mother Nature. It cannot be said enough that most writing is merely a cry for response. The male mallard is proof that God has an excellent eye for color. Ride with me, I need you, we’re going back. Is enough enough and if so when. Hark for we broke our journey to Toronto in three places. I am not opposed to edits, nor a pleasant sound in my head while reading. I am most pleased by apple blossoms, honeysuckle a close second. Out of Saint John’s Wort so what next. When it comes to compost, the chickens avoid grapefruit rinds. Why do we built outdoor files always in circles. Agitated goslings. Walking through wet soil and the tracks I leave behind are horse prints. Where the river turns we’re most likely to find treasure. That’s all, stop counting, you landed.

While it is still dark, the birds begin. Treble where the leaves are. And it accelerates. We are mostly soul. Of the black sky turning blue between pinprick stars. Cannot live in permanent wonder nor vacillate. Forgetting is part of any spiritual moment.

A sentence is a caul. A paragraph by design. Twenty sentences are what vessel. The heart between its ribs the way a cat does. More and more the afterlife. Consideration to which it obligates. Last summer, I was a bird.

In Nova Scotia, from Nova Scotia. Where it was quiet, those were happy.

Over coffee, a discussion of the merits of certain umbrellas. A fear of what interstice motivates prayer. ‘Tis the sinew where the Lord shows. And a light which breaks like song on a river.

At dusk, when I closed my eyes, I saw the last flutter of white wings as a hawk tore her to pieces. “It was a bad moment but she made eye contact.” At night, beneath chalky stars and wind sounds, some peace. The aroma of lilac everywhere now which I find it oddly sickening, though I love how the blooms look. You hope against hope for safe return.

Over the fence, bored horses bow and nod. The neighbor’s dogs visit all afternoon. “Is that your rooster?” While clouds race overhead. When I woke I thought I heard rain but it was one of the cats, purring. C asks over coffee: what did you dream? “I don’t remember.” Because at one point you were cheering somebody on.

Maybe the low swoop of robins as the sun rises in spring.

Oh, and the neighbor’s house never looked that bad. Or did it? You think you’re paying attention but suddenly it’s Sunday and seven years have passed. We ate asparagus dripping with olive oil, glass after glass of merlot and still. In some settings, garlic is the same color as a boiled bone. Which does not diminish my appetite.

Delphinium. Antediluvian grace. A cellar door in the rain. Gaps in the fence. Mountain laurel. Slick silver of buckling trout. Where blackberries grow. Deadfall. Impossible yellow. Crow feather bent where the trail turns east. Low moon, little light. Minnows and their ripples. After, perspiration on the upper lip, a sigh, salt. Dusty curtains, cold floors. Bruised rhubarb. Rocks shaped like hearts, Tennessee, a horse head. Ever in love but tired, so tired. Melody over what. A good walking stick, a dog. This list of what.

Again, a dream with a mouse in it. This one (dark gray and narrow) at the bottom of old stairs. I neither climbed nor descended them, merely passed them while moving quickly elsewhere. The mouse was pulling on a nightcrawler which then escaped. It bore no sign of bodily damage. I continued on beneath a rickety boardwalk. Thinking as I went, why is it the mouse does not pursue the crawler. And realized it was likely because of me – my stomping feet etc. I was not alone but who was I with.

Pause.

The right blend of sun and rain create a luscious green in Spring. Walking yesterday was at times traversing an emerald tunnel. Canopied trails we shared with newts. Moose tracks again but older. A flock of geese circled the pond and we hunkered near laurel waiting to watch them land. Mergansers in the distance. The truth is that on half a dozen walks there are half a dozen stones I know and by which measure those travels.

Lilac is richer in the morning as the sun rises through veils. A plethora of blue jays, always crows. By what miracle is the duck healed, the day marked.

Three days running now I’ve seen goslings. Here and there but always near water. One sentence runs into the next (forecasts the next) and that’s the easiest way to do it. Who cares if it’s linear. So is time. It’s memory that sort of clouds the issue.

A list from yesterday might include: deer mounts, bear rugs, tears, wrong turns, lit-up hearts, coffee, creaking stairs. Alice the duck, last vestige of the naive farmer, appears to be in the throes of her final illness. Scatter layer pellets, dose her gently with the hose. Is it possible the heart literally grows heavier when sad? Can you prove to me it doesn’t?

You wonder who reads this. But don’t exactly care. Audience was never the point. What the point was has grown distant and faint, like an image in the rear view mirror. Yes, it is closer than it appears. On the other hand, what do I know.

But hey, who cares what I know? It’s not what you know but how you use it. And what, friend, does that remind you of?

This whole thing is closer to code than not. Each sentence a veil drawn over what it would like to reveal. Not a dance, not a tease. More like the stuttering of talk therapy.

I can’t tell if the brown shape by the road is a still flicker or a chunk of sod. Yesterday we cut the first bunch of lilac for the mantle. At the roots, hundreds of new bushes I can’t bring myself to ruin. Jeremiah yanked by hand some stringy rhubarb to put in water. It’s beautiful, he said. And nobody argued.

A thunderstorm passed last night. First of the season to fit the predictable mold. Clouds bunching at supper time, a fast pounding rain, thunder like ordnance right above the house. Yet after, there was no rainbow. And I was sad – what else can I say – how else can I say it.

And I still haven’t quite figured out when to stop writing. This writing, this way. I feel like a hiker on the verge of a new trail. Who wants to lighten his load. You can’t help but go forward. It’s who you walk with and what you carry that you can help.