This selfie - Was at the end of my early "Keene cleaning"( in Keene, NY) aka "spring cleaning" of psyche and withers nether or other - clover blossoms not yet pointillistas in ice and snow-pressed canvas beige fields.
I yield, 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 in to sound, full ground swell in Pleistocene song.
Shall too soon be 'lithic' myself, right eye in what appears to be in a permanent squint ,which is my 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.
Perch, 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, or for trees falling; up in mountains such as these, very old, there's an 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 time clock for trees as there is for my knees, I'll vouch. 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, those 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've been stalked by one 'yoté I named Munch (after the painter) since he apparently had been hard hit by a vehicle and had his jaw broken which left his mouth ope't into that famous "Scream" and one hip was wopper-jawed too (meaning akimbo-ed).
This was in covid year 2020, he and me both leaving prints in snow. I'd leave some night offerings as did the owner of the land, a nightly offering of leftovers, bones, and such. Munch 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 done). 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 of Spruce Hill, 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 -
pled "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. No one spared. so as a coot and pain in the ass retired moonshiner used to say some 30 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, all a kind of weather.
So, I hope Munch's still ambling about but didn't we made a good pair each respecting our careful distance what allowed some company and kinship in Dende Gulch, a hide away, where we'd both stand, paused 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 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
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