The birds are singing a soft beginning to the day. The fog blankets the top of the hill. It is the receiving blanket of a child.
I am traveling into the city today for a Sensory Awareness workshop with Jill Harris. I look forward to it, and will see if I make it through both sessions or "sense" that just morning is enough.
I am with this poem by Tony Hoagland.
NATURE
I miss the friendship with the pine tree and the birds
I had when I was ten.
And it has been forever since I pushed my head
under the wild silk skirt of that waterfall.
What I had with them was tender and private.
The lake was practically my girlfriend.
I carried her picture in my front shirt pocket.
Even in my sleep, I heard the sound of water.
The big rock on the shore was the skull of a dead king
whose name we could almost remember.
Under the rooty bank you could dimly see
the bunk beds of the turtles.
Maybe twice had I said a girl's name to myself;
I had not yet had my first weird dream of money.
Nobody I know mentions these things anymore.
It's as if their memories have been seized, erased, and relocated
among flow charts and complex dinner party calendars.
Now I want to turn and run back the other way
barefoot into the underbrush,
getting raked by thorns, being slapped in the face by branches.
Down to the muddy bed of the little stream
where my cupped hands make a house, and
I tilt up the roof
to look at the face of the frog.
- Tony Hoagland
The poem reminds me of when we lived on the Mississippi River and I had my own "forest" on one side of our property and the river in front. There was an island there, and, in the winter, that part of the river would freeze and we could ice skate or walk over to the island. Now, that was a treat. Talk about enjoyment of solitude, water, ice, sky, and trees. I taste it now.
There is an article today on the new glass overlook at the Grand Canyon. It concludes it is still best to just stand on the side of the canyon and look down. Nature does not require theatrics or entertainment. These days are so sparkly that sometimes I have to come inside just to absorb all that living and pollen spreading that is splashing, lilting, tossing, and stomping everywhere.
Some friends of my brother's family were nearly killed in the tornadoes in Connecticut this week. Perhaps my brother and his family might have been also. It is important to not forget what is so obvious, the preciousness of these days and nights we live. Enjoy, savor, taste, and inhale this day, this bliss.