Years ago, a tiny lizard was caught in the hinge of the bathroom window. Someone must have shut it quick and either never noticed or left it there on purpose. Its body paled to an almost parchment color. You could see the spine, like it was turned into an x-ray of itself. If it had gotten away instead of perished, its body would have spontaneously generated a copy of the amputated part— its cells proliferating into cartilage instead of growing more bone in place of broken bone. As a child I'd loved stories of their free-fall from the ceiling, admired that superpower which could put a fractured thing back into some semblance of the whole. But also, I remember the warnings not to wish so hard for anything in case it becomes too true— Every escape a kind of thievery from the gods, for which you might have to pay, with no end in sight.
April Diary 24: dueling banjos, a roomier Rumi, and some moving art
Dear April whippoorwills are back. two of them like dueling banjos out here as i cool down from puttering in the garden and going for the usual hike and puttering in the garden before that and going in town etc.
whipoorwhipoorwhipoor is what i’m hearing of their inane battle for vocal supremacy. once upon a time people in places as far-flung as Greenland and Yemen used to settle disputes with song contests though so i guess dueling banjos is better than an actual duel ya know?
this morning on the porch i finished my re-read of Elaine Equi’s Ripple Effect: New and Selected Poems as part of my never-ending quest to keep the current reading pile to a reasonable height. it was as always a blast. Equi is such a fun poet. why aren’t more poets fun?
actually poked some seeds in the soil today. and it felt as futile and ridiculous as ever. it’s a good thing i like being wrong
but whilst hoeing openings in the straw mulch i wrecked a nest of field mice — didn’t hurt any i don’t think but they were still blind and pretty helpless scattering in random directions. i scooped one out of the path and it just lay on the straw trembling. i laid a bit more straw on top of it to give it a fighting chance until i left and mama could come back and move her babies
that was part of my excuse for heading out on a mid-afternoon walk. also i wanted the openings to dry out a little before i stuck seeds in
the new Rumi arrived so i tucked it into my pack
Dear April there are few sights in nature more entertaining than the sight of a wild turkey fleeing at a fast trot. it makes me think the cretaceous period would’ve been equally full of humorously dorky creatures that would also eat you
i did get to see wood frog tadpoles—the doomed ones in the too-small pools that always dry out too soon. they appeared to be feeding on the remains of the egg masses. it quickly became too disturbing to watch, all that teeming and thrashing of tails
i do not care for teeming. in fact i don’t hold with it. it may be natural but that doesn’t mean i have to like it. the buddha was right, life is suffering
don’t mind me i’ll probably go back to being a Daoist tomorrow
anyway so i get to the bench and take out the book and realize why it was so cheap on eBay
so i got a review copy of a New York Review book. seems kinda collectible, right? except for one problem
the entire introduction is missing
do publishers really send out review copies before the introduction is finished? might this in fact be an earlier author proof?
the translation by Haleh Liza Gafori seems absolutely credible in every way, it’s a Rumi that actually reads like a medieval Sufi, translated in modern poetry as good or better than anything out there, as such an enduringly popular poet surely deserves
after reading a dozen or so Rumi poems with great satisfaction at their beauty and power i realized i just wasn’t in the mood for what he was selling actually
so this book probably won’t go on the current reading pile just yet. but it’ll be on the shelf when the mood strikes
i wish i could be more like my mom and methodically read every new book i get plus many many more from the library but i’ll never be half the reader she is. few people today are, i suspect
insert punditry here re: what it might mean for a literate culture to slowly lose its great readers and lovers of books, might we in fact now be post-literate etc. ad nauseum
my relationship with books may not be entirely healthy at least if you accept the once common belief that greed is harmful to the soul. i like owning books even though or perhaps because i can’t really afford to buy them. the problem is with most of the haiku i read, the presses are so small and the entire scene so invisible to academic poets, huge university libraries like Penn State’s don’t acquire them. a lot of the other small-press stuff i read would be a bit easier to get on inter-library loan, but not all of it…
like an addict i clearly have my excuses all lined up
i think i found a winter wren nesting spot down in the hollow but i’m not sure yet. i’ll keep an eye on it
also while waiting for a train to clear our crossing i took some pictures because people don’t believe me when i tell them i can see traveling urban art galleries at the end of our lane
late in the afternoon i paused to admire this massive old wild grapevine, which seemed pretty damn big when i was a kid 50 years ago:
there’s probably a haiku in there. hmm…
brown thrasher
back for another spring
ancient grapevine
but even when this loop of vine dies as long as there’s forest here this individual will go on, sprouting roots as needed and adapting to the ever-changing forest conditions over the course of who knows how long? i don’t think there’s any way to date them. they could go back 8000 years. it seems just barely possible
New window
Up, and with Tom (whom, with his wife, I, and my wife, had this morning taken occasion to tell that I did intend to give him 40l. for himself, and 20l. to his wife, towards their setting out in the world, and that my wife would give her 20l. more, that she might have as much to begin with as he) by coach to White Hall, and there having set him work in the Robe Chamber, to write something for me, I to Westminster Hall, and there walked from 10 o’clock to past 12, expecting to have met Deb., but whether she had been there before, and missing me went away, or is prevented in coming, and hath no mind to come to me (the last whereof, as being most pleasing, as shewing most modesty, I should be most glad of), I know not, but she not then appearing, I being tired with walking went home, and my wife being all day at Jane’s, helping her, as she said, to cut out linen and other things belonging to her new condition, I after dinner out again, and, calling for my coach, which was at the coachmaker’s, and hath been for these two or three days, to be new painted, and the window-frames gilt against May-day, went on with my hackney to White Hall, and thence by water to Westminster Hall, and there did beckon to Doll Lane, now Mrs. Powell, as she would have herself called, and went to her sister Martin’s lodgings, the first time I have been there these eight or ten months, I think, and her sister being gone to Portsmouth to her husband, I did stay and talk and drink with Doll and hazer ella para tocar mi thing; and yo did the like para her, but [did] not the thing itself, having not opportunity enough; and so away, and to White Hall, and there took my own coach, which was now come, and so away home, and there to do business, and my wife being come home we to talk and to sup, there having been nothing yet like discovery in my wife of what hath lately passed with me about Deb., and so with great content to bed.
the world I work
and walk in
appearing out my new
painted window frame
a May-day haze
thin like the self
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 19 April 1669.
Postnatural
You can put a city on a mountain if you build a road to get there.
This is called infrastructure.
American colonizers did exactly that.
That's how they say my city was born, though it was there long before
anyone whipped out a compass or scale ruler.
I'm not just writing again of my nostalgia.
How beautiful it is when fog descends upon new architecture.
The moon, glimpsed through splayed fingers of pine, is also beautiful.
Tinted sepia, it could be a scene from an old movie.
What disappeared is not a metaphor for anything.
What disappeared is gone.
Cacao growers worry about their withered farms.
I've been reading about extractive geologies and global expansion.
Thieves take copper from electrical substations and construction lots.
My neighbor complained that their copper rain chain was stolen.
People wonder how much gold and silver is left in the world.
The brightest thing in my house right now is an orange in the fruit bowl.
I don't need to sink my teeth into it to tell that it's real.
At some point, we will eat it.
April Diary 23: earthy day
Dear April it was one of those rare mornings when both the sun and the moon were visible from my usual spot on the porch. not only that but a hermit thrush kept singing in the distance — many years we don’t hear them singing on migration. (sadly they don’t seem to nest on the mountain. we’re not high enough)
when the day starts out as beautiful as today did this time of year i’m always torn: go for a long walk or work in the garden
well today being earth day already the spring is getting away from me as usual so i figured i’d better dig in the dirt— and not fun stuff either like planting things but putting in new fence posts and moving the fence to expand the garden because (Samuel L. Jackson voice) i’ve had it with these motherfucking deer eating my motherfucking potatoes
but first to procrastinate in the best possible way: by banging out three erasure poems by ten o’clock. then outside to dig as the red-tailed hawks circled overhead and wild turkeys gobbled up on the ridge
of course digging holes on a mountaintop you have to expect to encounter a few rocks
that one gave me a good five-minute workout
i do love the smell of our heavy rocky iron-rich clay
after a couple of hours of that i headed off down-hollow to check on the wildflowers. the first rue anemones were just opening…
windflowers
our annual exchange
of nods
the hepaticas were blooming in profusion. “snow? what snow?”
even in the ditch
with last year’s leaves
this April sun
white pine
fused to a hemlock tree
creek voices
ya know people have a point, Appalachian hollows can look kinda creepy sometimes — a combination of long shadows and old things, half-rotted hulks and mossy leviathans
the mid-spring woods is a weird place with all these wildflowers racing to do their whole thing before the trees leaf out and they lose the sun. i love how whole communities can evolve to take advantage of such narrow temporal windows, like when a desert blooms after a rare soaking rain
spring forest
the shadow of a vulture
crosses my page
i’m two-thirds of the way through this Zang Di book and i’ve just found the third poem i feel as if i fully understand and it’s very good: “Scarecrow Series”
all about like effigies and doubles and the other and maybe i feel like i grok it because it’s something i happen to have given a decent amount of thought to over the years. more likely though it’s just a more straightforward less riddling poem
back up the mountain to start supper (venison casserole) then off to the other end of the property. Mom had said all the wood frogs were hatching in the vernal pools this morning and i should be able to get pictures but by the time i got there they had all buggered off to deeper spots. quite a few egg masses had been deposited in a shallow area that almost dried up completely at one point so it was great news that they’d made it to tadpole stage
sitting on the bench up there though i take another gander at the Zang Di book and find that something just clicked and now i seem to get most of his poems actually. i’ve had that happen with other somewhat difficult or arcane poets where because i think i’m a little slow on the uptake it can take me most of a collection before i learn how to read it. i’d argue that’s a good part of the fun of poetry: everyone gets to make up their own universe and they have to trust that a few readers will put in the work to understand what laws govern it
after supper more work on the fence moving project until dusk then sitting out on the porch watching a bat swoop back and forth. the hermit thrush was singing again. every day is of course earth day it’s a ridiculous thing to have to have a holiday for BUT today did feel especially earthy i have to admit
Conference of the birds
(Lord’s day). Up, and all the morning till 2 o’clock at my Office, with Gibson and Tom, about drawing up fair my discourse of the Administration of the Navy, and then, Mr. Spong being come to dine with me, I in to dinner, and then out to my Office again, to examine the fair draught; and so borrowing Sir J. Minnes’s coach, he going with Colonel Middleton, I to White Hall, where we all met and did sign it and then to my Lord Arlington’s, where the King, and the Duke of York, and Prince Rupert, as also Ormond and the two Secretaries, with my Lord Ashly and Sir T. Clifton was. And there, by and by, being called in, Mr. Williamson did read over our paper, which was in a letter to the Duke of York, bound up in a book with the Duke of York’s Book of Instructions. He read it well; and, after read, we were bid to withdraw, nothing being at all said to it. And by and by we were called in again, and nothing said to that business; but another begun, about the state of this year’s action, and our wants of money, as I had stated the same lately to our Treasurers; which I was bid, and did largely, and with great content, open. And having so done, we all withdrew, and left them to debate our supply of money; to which, being called in, and referred to attend on the Lords of the Treasury, we all departed. And I only staid in the House till the Council rose; and then to the Duke of York, who in the Duchess’s chamber come to me, and told me that the book was there left with my Lord Arlington, for any of the Lords to view that had a mind, and to prepare and present to the King what they had to say in writing, to any part of it, which is all we can desire, and so that rested. The Duke of York then went to other talk; and by and by comes the Prince of Tuscany to visit him, and the Duchess; and I find that he do still remain incognito, and so intends to do all the time he stays here, for avoiding trouble to the King and himself, and expence also to both.
Thence I to White Hall Gate, thinking to have found Sir J. Minnes’s coach staying for me; but, not being there, and this being the first day of rain we have had many a day, the streets being as dusty as in summer, I forced to walk to my cozen Turner’s, and there find my wife newly gone home, which vexed me, and so I, having kissed and taken leave of Betty, who goes to Putney to school to-morrow, I walked through the rain to the Temple, and there, with much ado, got a coach, and so home, and there to supper, and Pelling comes to us, and after much talk, we parted, and to bed.
wing to wing
we all met up
in a book of instructions
read to an open rose
on a street dusty as summer
the kiss of rain
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 18 April 1669.
Reluctant prophet
Up, and to the office, where all the morning. At noon at home to dinner, and there find Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, and he dined with us; and there hearing that “The Alchymist” was acted, we did go, and took him with us to the King’s house; and it is still a good play, having not been acted for two or three years before; but I do miss Clun, for the Doctor. But more my eyes will not let me enjoy the pleasure I used to have in a play. Thence with my wife in hackney to Sir W. Coventry’s, who being gone to the Park we drove after him, and there met him coming out, and followed him home, and there sent my wife to Unthanke’s while I spent an hour with him reading over first my draught of the Administration of the Navy, which he do like very well; and so fell to talk of other things, and among the rest of the story of his late disgrace, and how basely and in what a mean manner the Duke of Buckingham hath proceeded against him — not like a man of honour. He tells me that the King will not give other answer about his coming to kiss his hands, than “Not yet.” But he says that this that he desires, of kissing the King’s hand, is only to show to the world that he is not discontented, and not in any desire to come again into play, though I do perceive that he speaks this with less earnestness than heretofore: and this, it may be, is, from what he told me lately, that the King is offended at what is talked, that he hath declared himself desirous not to have to do with any employment more. But he do tell me that the leisure he hath yet had do not at all begin to be burdensome to him, he knowing how to spend his time with content to himself; and that he hopes shortly to contract his expence, so as that he shall not be under any straits in that respect neither; and so seems to be in very good condition of content.
Thence I away over the Park, it being now night, to White Hall, and there, in the Duchess’s chamber, do find the Duke of York; and, upon my offer to speak with him, he did come to me, and withdrew to his closet, and there did hear and approve my paper of the Administration of the Navy, only did bid me alter these words, “upon the rupture between the late King and the Parliament,” to these, “the beginning of the late Rebellion;” giving it me as but reason to shew that it was with the Rebellion that the Navy was put by out of its old good course, into that of a Commission. Having done this, we fell to other talk; he with great confidence telling me how matters go among our adversaries, in reference to the Navy, and that he thinks they do begin to flag; but then, beginning to talk in general of the excellency of old constitutions, he did bring out of his cabinet, and made me read it, an extract out of a book of my late Lord of Northumberland’s, so prophetic of the business of Chatham, as is almost miraculous. I did desire, and he did give it me to copy out, which pleased me mightily, and so, it being late, I away and to my wife, and by hackney; home, and there, my eyes being weary with reading so much: but yet not so much as I was afeard they would, we home to supper and to bed.
the morning is with us for years
let me go out
reading over my draft
like a nest of burdens
how to become a prophet
of the miraculous
my eyes weary
with so much fear
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 17 April 1669.
Poet of the road
Up, and to my chamber, where with Mr. Gibson all the morning, and there by noon did almost finish what I had to write about the Administration of the Office to present to the Duke of York, and my wife being gone abroad with W. Hewer, to see the new play to-day, at the Duke of York’s house, “Guzman,” I dined alone with my people, and in the afternoon away by coach to White Hall; and there the Office attended the Duke of York; and being despatched pretty soon, and told that we should not wait on the King, as intended, till Sunday, I thence presently to the Duke of York’s playhouse, and there, in on the road the 18d. seat, did get room to see almost three acts of the play; but it seemed to me but very ordinary. After the play done, I into the pit, and there find my wife and W. Hewer; and Sheres got to them, which, so jealous is my nature, did trouble me, though my judgment tells me there is no hurt in it, on neither side; but here I did meet with Shadwell, the poet, who, to my great wonder, do tell me that my Lord of [Orrery] did write this play, trying what he could do in comedy, since his heroique plays could do no more wonders. This do trouble me; for it is as mean a thing, and so he says, as hath been upon the stage a great while; and Harris, who hath no part in it, did come to me, and told me in discourse that he was glad of it, it being a play that will not take. Thence home, and to my business at the office, to finish it, but was in great pain about yesterday still, lest my wife should have sent her porter to enquire anything, though for my heart I cannot see it possible how anything could be discovered of it, but yet such is fear as to render me full of doubt and disgust. At night to supper and to bed.
on the road a king
in the present or
an ordinary poet who wonders
about yesterday still
how anything could be
discovered of it
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 16 April 1669, with thanks of course to Roger Miller.
How and Why
Sometimes you try to find a way to explain how you do it or why— Kind of like the way a food or recipe tester, say, might boil hundreds and hundreds of eggs, set timers at 6 or 7 or 8 minutes to see which gives the jammiest center for ramen, which makes the perfect little breakfast orb to lower into the cute egg cup and tap on the head with a spoon until it shatters; which yields the least chalky yellow center for smooth deviled eggs and lively egg salad sandwiches. Is it disappointing when you can't explain such a need in terms of white oleanders or the soft, impossible fuzz on the cheeks of peaches, those kinds of things that others might have praised for the whole orchards they see flowering in the skin of a thing simply cradled in their hands? Not that you can't also be tender like that, or give a different flavor to burning wood. Through a closed door or a medium mistaken for a barrier, an absence of thought: the reverberation of some far-off machine still sends audible signals. Think of all the riddles you've ever been given to solve— There's a chamber walled in alabaster with a tree or carousel or snow globe at its center. Nothing can climb in or out. Or there is only one way to get in or out. Your desire is to have it whole, a geometry where nothing is subtracted, even when taken away.
April Diary 22: serious riddles
Dear April would i be a better reader if i were less comfortable with mystery?
a better scholar probably. but would i enjoy it as much? this Zang Di translation for example continues to delight and entrance but i often have only the fuzziest idea what he’s banging on about. “Riddles are serious,” he writes, “must I really prepare each step for you?”
oh hey, poetry prompt time! CIA Torture Queen Now A Beauty And Life Coach
I see you, Queen of Torture, and everything you’ve always been.
Do you think your Instagram ads and Botox siren songs fool me?
I see the eels behind your eyes and the skulls inside your smile; in your heart you are still torturing, and you love it.
Torture is your first love, your only love, your soulmate, your sex; torture is what you’re made of, torture is what you are.
You are inseparably one with the machine which tortures the poor, which tortures our ecosystem, which tortures children under blockades and starvation sanctions, which tortures our dreamworlds and our sacred seeds of disobedience.
We will beat the machine. We will win.
That primal clarity lives within us still, and you can only sedate a giant for so long.
kind of shocked to see Caitlin Johnstone end the essay on an upbeat note but she’s a good egg i think
steady rain and a midday social engagement kept me out of the woods till after supper. the leaf duff shines wetly like an amphibian instead of the usual shaggy mammalian look. fog forms around me as i type that last sentence and slowly dissipates
i decided i would rather be moist than hot is a real thing i just said to myself, concerning my decision not wear rain gaiters
i am finding so many fallen branches covered in jelly ears this evening. well the traffic noise from I-99 is pretty bad. maybe all those ears just couldn’t take it anymore
can one wallow in happiness? or is wallowing reserved for misery?
that may sound like a joke but i really need to know. wallowing is important to me. it feels as if i do quite a lot of it. but i don’t feel at all miserable
where snow
just sat
the red sporangia
mushroom ladder
the sunset’s own
waterthrush
met another hiker:
the first red eft of the year. pictured next to the aforementioned red sporangia. winter’s monochrome seems well behind us even though there are still a few small patches of snow (and lord knows we could get more)
what a crazy lifestyle. as with knights errant the death rate for efts is quite high but if they survive their years-long wandering they get to transform into an aquatic newt and spend the rest of their lives in a pond or spring BUT if it ever dries up they can un-metamorphose back to being a terrestrial eft and walk away. both are considered adult forms
at this point i’m a little annoyed at how literal my earlier likening of the forest floor to an amphibian has become
what does it mean to be found in a lost world? christians think they know. i am way more interested in being lost in a found world. at least as far as poeming is concerned
tongues of fog form in Sinking Valley as night falls. barred owls begin a conversation down ridge. the world is always speaking whether we listen or not
i suppose that’s what i meant yesterday by poetry as revelation. nothing particularly wootastic
i often can’t tell whether i’m serious or joking. that’s the danger with dark humor perhaps — after a while you might forget it’s supposed to be funny
“riddles are serious” indeed
what i just went on felt like a jaunt rather than a ramble. definitely neither a stroll nor a hike. a jaunty wander out with the efts. home in time to finish my erasure poem. and so to bed