Seen successive evenings at dusk: two great blue herons, streaking home toward the Claggett Creek wetland, as distinct and as similar as two different thoughts. And where were they, I wonder, before their last flight of day — the outcome of whose life, arisen in whose brain? Both evenings were clear. But now clouds have moved in and the atmosphere has changed. Will this lead to a change of thoughts? And […]
You love this mirage, this idea of yourself looking out on the world, when, all the while, the world is within you. And you love the sanctity of what you imagine is your private space, when that same space is outside you. And if what is outside is in, and what is inside is out, where are you, and what are you? Just what becomes of the who of you? […]
If it can be held, it can also be released. There have been other thoughts today. But I do not remember them. September 24, 2019
Lunch. I’d just fallen asleep on the floor in the back room when I heard a strange noise — the sound of a hanger, perhaps, falling for no reason from the wooden rod in the closet and banging against a bracket on the way down, or of a penny committing suicide by throwing itself into an old cider jar half full of its tragically expired brethren. Awake for the nonce, […]
I do not carry a notebook or a pen. If I write it down, what then? Best to leave it be, and let it pass through and over me. And even that is arrogant. As if I will be, a moment hence, what I thought I was, and who I think I am. Yet I write it now — a willful child, a fleeting man — a penance of the […]
Do I see what I think I see and hear what I think I hear, or are these towhees my thoughts, suddenly taking form and substance? The friendly birds arrive from nowhere while I’m watering the geraniums. Just a few feet away, the male hops from the moss into the birdbath and starts splashing; the female sings from the birch above. And what of the geraniums themselves, and the moss, […]
The assumption that it’s difficult is what makes it so. But then, so does any assumption at all. You Think You Know Yourself You think you know yourself — then comes a word, a phrase, a night, a moon, an oak in rust on a time-worn hill, leaves, twigs, and cloud-debris, horseless riders faceless until they swing right in front of you — did you dream them or did […]
This world I see, feel, taste, touch, imagine, dream — is my consciousness. And so my early-morning walk, with its chimney smoke, irises, and crows, is my own private mirror. A quick glance, and I see what I think I see. But a deeper gaze reveals eternity, and thus the futility of all thoughts mercenary, by which to the loser goes the spoils. To hate someone is to hate myself. […]
I used to have dreams about work not done. I was behind on the farm, I was late, the necessity and importance of the job had completely slipped my mind. An example: suddenly it was April or May, and I realized I had forgotten to prune ten whole acres of vines. Always, or almost always, the dreams culminated in a feeling of guilt and shame. It has been many years […]
Canvas 1,234
They arrived almost immediately after I had awakened
from a surprisingly deep after-lunch sleep.
Or maybe they were already here,
and I am the one who arrived.
Or it might be all of us were away,
and fate arranged our simultaneous return.
March 31, 2019
