Cracked Song for Dirty Boots - rushing into deep freeze, head for wherefore & hither to, the long yaw of yonder

Moi, Ol' Squint - Keene forest aft. April 28, 2025

This selfie, more like schlep-fe (fie foe fumb), was took at the end, last full day,, of my early "Keene cleaning"( n Keene, NY) aka "spring cleaning" of psyche and withers nether or other - clover blossoms not yet pointil-listas in ice and snow-pressed -canvas-beige fields.

I yield, nay, I brake, for such fields, what surrounds them there, tall mountains and the ceaseless slurrrrr of spruce and fir forest. Would that I were there now for Autumn color but leaves are down already, pretty much, 

and wind with those countless leaves does add rattle to the slurrrr.

I have stood long still, cane-leaning, into sound, 

full ground swell in Pleistocene song.

Shall too soon be 'lithic' myself, right eye in what appears to be in permanent squint, which is the new name for my elder-ing self, shelf life not yet expired but close, a smudge-smear over that year ahead when/then (it's) ashes to ashes (down to that), no more need for socks and such, no more spitting into the wind for luck or lurch.

"Perched", say, 

whilst I can.

So unfair it is that just now, only past 10 years or so, am I able to be still, to be present-er, a very real arrival (believe you me), and the hitch-bitch of it is now I have to be smudged, un-here'd, ears for thunder no more, nor trees falling; up in high mounts such as these, very old, their ongoing tympani of crack-snaps, entire length of dead or dying trees sundering.  

Satisfying to hear, rare to see, don't wanna get too close but's no known time clock for trees as there is naught for my knees, I'll vouch. The crouch and lean does covey a tick and tock indicating clock wobble and the waning. They, trees, not knees, fall at mysterious appointed times which, down and grounded, go into mulch mode, decay-alchemy in layered weathered phases. That's for me, sockless, formless, but fast to ashes hopeful enough to add a thimble of nutrients for the ever unfolding, yes, overused word, so sue me,

PAGEANT.

(tipping my hat but not my tea cup to poet James Merrill here).

Now's rushing into deep freeze, these woods behind me (in the pic). Bears now caved or pert near. 

In winter there I freely wander, more like stagger, slip, slide on ice (frozen snow in dunes) but no need for eyes and ears out for bears. Coyotes on the other hand, they're shy but curious, and hungry. I swear I've heard the herd collective cur stomach rumble, and loud. Rare to hear. But a most unpronounced of Creator's miracle of creation by speech, rather, sound, and animal tremolo distempers the rare two leggèd hearer aka "nearer my God (or that which the name evokes) to thee" aka "look busy" or, rather, shape shift borrowing "coyote trickster" medicine (powers) and blend in with the scenery, snow, stone, tree....just, please, don't eat me tho I am New York deli fed and smell like another name for God, GARLIC.

I've been stalked by one 'yoté I named Munch (after the painter, Edvard of Norway) since he, 'yoté, not the painter, just to be clear even if one is a'squint in one eye ot t'other, said bedraggled yoté apparently had been hard hit by a vehicle and had his jaw broken which left its mouth ope't into that famous "Scream" and one hip was wopper-jawed too (meaning "akimbo-ed" in Appalachian mounts tongue).

This encounter was in covid year 2020, months of solo wandering in tundra (just to sound wilderness-ish, but it was indeed though 9N divided chaos with it's paved order, Munch and me both seemed to be conjoined from the sloppy braid of our paw prints be-dappled, dung on the side (not mine, too damned cold to squat tho sometimes urged) in snow.  

I'd leave some night offerings as did the owner of the land, of leftovers, bones, and such, hers for the pack, mine for patient Munch who would wait his turn, had to "for he was slow and wary" as he should be with that pack of mean bastards who cut him no slack (as also life had not so cut) - Faltered, he, fr'ever, Fated, but not fatally. Not fair. 

But as to fairness -

FAT CHANCE!

I would some times coo long and low and slow to soothe the scrawn' wag (wag of which he couldn't). One day found myself calling him Cousin. So, further named, he became Cousin Munch, a living haint, a Geechee Gullah word from my home state which I disowned gladly as it was none too kind to me but for the grace of nearby woods, a lake, ponds, natural springs wherein I could duck and cover/recover some sense of safety and "what for" enough to rough it till I could limber outta psychic limbo and head for wherefore and hither to, the long yawn of yonder, anywhere but there where I bid and did my time -

skeee--daddled,

plead "I WAS FRAMED!" to the night sky in the front field, my boy's flashlight signaling

SOS SOS SOS
SOS SOS SOS

remorse code to what ever-who might appear outta stars and retrieve me, 

me relieve too too fed on fear and grief.

But no pity. No pity.
Done with that.

I take in Cousin's countenance and save pity, right use of the word, for him. I've had four squares and can still "cut a rug" when the chance comes to do so. I'm good. Now I'm good, and over it. Tis blistery s'all. Noone spared. So as a coot and pain in the ass retired moonshiner in Carolina hollar used to say some 40 years ago,

"Lord love a duck."

Which is fun to say.

And it worked. Rather, the cooing forth at, getting back to, Munch, hunched, hunkered, hang-dogged, come by it honestly, like me but recovered and bearing my own tale with wider vantage in and out, in or was, and now, see it's all a kind of weather.

So, I hope Munch's still ambling about but didn't we make a good pair, each respecting our careful distances what allowed some company and kinship in Duende Gulch, a hide away where we'd both stand, pause and be present to each other. Squint me and Cousin Munch, now kin, some kinder space between to make meaning for me, more of it, and whatever the equivalent or near to for the 'yoté pilgrim haint, head permanently down, still, I hope, around Spruce Hill, Mount Marcy peak just peeking over Hurricane ridge, keeping watch overall Its terrain 360 around, between, and below

Come January, then, I hope to return. Left eye aiming to see Cousin. Meanwhile, singing this cracked song with lent crow throat what used to carry a tune:

Don't Let Me Come Home A Stranger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk-G3ht8d40&list=RDsk-G3ht8d40&start_radio=1

**

O stand radiant-starred late afternoon

O stained stark shadows' black frieze 


astonished stooped man

time's wee piss-boy 

damp bunk-bed mattress fears


O stand glazed from edges 

gaze to bark

vine maps of escape


Iron shadows

impress long into 

wet pit 


sun shards

spy glass 

throat sore


Cracked song for dirty boots

* * * *

O lost, and by the wind grieved,,

ghost, come back again.

— Thomas Wolfe