To be refreshed

By -
I went out back behind work yesterday (building 11), into an area where the scrub woods, pines and young hardwoods, are bisected to open a wide shady space. The space has been un-neatly filled with various plant debris (clippings, dirt, defuncted annuals), probably by Cisco facilities. You can walk over the mounds of detritus to Lake Betz (the northern side). I walked there sloping from pine to grass to soggy ground, cattail muck, recurred bramble thorn, a trampled deer path. I stopped short when a noticed a patch of grey under a beech tree. I went down - yoga squat - close to mud, close to grass sweeps where something goes in and out of the lake, brown water but settled and clear, trying not to disturb the solemnity. After a few minutes, I bowed and humbly picked my way back through the brier as the heron watched.

That little natural jaunt sort-of changed me in a way that slowly washed off as I waded through the next day. We left North Carolina on I-77 north, and I felt like I saw the Blue Ridge Mountains for the first in a long time, through the naked trees, curving back behind the driver side window. The road banked right to draw up almost parallel to them, but off kilter a little, bound to intersect, and go up over the mountains. It was like a slow collision, two timelines, or two particles fusing. I imagined beautifully recursive spirals. 

We stopped in Wytheville, VA, at an outskirt Starbucks we first visited as young lovers, and continue to visit as we grow old together. I took Benji out a-walking while Susan and Adella cleaned up and got coffee. Across a big grassy field under - what? - cherry trees, sits a little drainage pond where flies bubble up in the slanting light, savoring the warmth of fall before winter sets in. It was the day before Solstice. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bummin' Around

By -
I'm so over work on the real. My last day was Friday. Goodbye to AmeriCorps! It was a pleasure serving you, America - eliminating poverty and the like - but I must be goin' now. Well I'm on my way. I don't know where I'm going. I'm taking my time but I don't know where. I awoke early this morning before the sun had risen. A faint glow could be seen in the eastern sky and only the most brightest stars were still alight in the sky. I walked off the porch (where I'd been sleeping) and looked for the moon, but the moon had sunk too far west and was blocked by the neighbor's house (the same neighbor who keeps complaining to the city that our chicken coop is on their property). Chris, me roomie, told me of a lunar eclipse, but because the moon wasn't in view, I went back to the couch on the porch and lay down watching the dawn get on. Later in the morning, after I'd been to the bank and the post office to arrange for my impending trip - oh, did I m
Read more

I know this is a long post, but if you break it up into two or three sections, it's a pretty managable read.

By -
Boy, I must like blogging late at night because here it is midnight and I'm on the computer typing away. Keeping my roommates awake; the rucus of nimble little fingers on a particularly clicky keyboard. But, it's not particularly the night time blogging keeping me awake. I've just been having such a good time in the late night. Last night, for example, I made a cape from an old wool army blanket. It's a pretty neat thing. It's semicircle in shape with another smaller semicircle cut out for the neck. I made the neckhole too big, alas. But, I believe it's beautiful all the same. And, a mighty fine cape. I'll put a hood on that thing, then I'll be ready for the woods. Got my poncho (see Lost and Found ). Got my backpack (see Oh, I've been in a place ... ). Got my sleeping bag (see 'H' is for 'hairy' man ... ). Now I got my cape. I also got bugs on me right now! Some multitude of litte creepers. They bite like fleas. I had fleas once in h
Read more

Giddy Up!

By -
Image
A statue in the Dallas historic district. A big Texas moon, just risen over the long, low horizon, stared down as I sat for my ride. The moon bent its phantom head down to the great expanse. It seemed to find something interesting to watch, but what it was, and how far I’d have to ride to find it, no one can say. I’d have to imagine the answer is somewhere in the coarse, lonely song of a cow rustler, toasted over red embers, heavy with the weight of leather, stuck back in time, only a legend now. So was the scene on a Friday night, as I sat outside the grand Gaylord Texas, an opulent conference center and hotel, with rooms the size of football fields and carpets printed with cowboy boots, belt buckles, lassos, horseshoes, lone stars, wagon wheels, yellow roses, and cattle heads - a cornucopia of Texas cliches. I was there to work through the next seven days on a wireless location-based tracking project. It was a hard engagement with long days, but the evenings (when I got th
Read more