April Diary 17: comfort creatures

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
This entry is part 17 of 31 in the series April Diary

when burnout threatens, go for a walk

i used to fight this but little else works

“but it’s raining and blowing!”

and people are dying preventable deaths all over the world. get a grip. comfort is the enemy whether as a driver of economic exploitation and war, or at the personal level as a destroyer of health and a thief of joy


hepaticas tossing in the wind catch my eye. i kneel down to watch them then snap a photo, feeling sure there’s a haiku in there somewhere

and there is


how am i supposed to sit on something so beautiful?

but there’s a break in the rain so i’d better take it

and just enough time to read one Zang Di poem before more raindrops come. sure wish i hadn’t forgotten my goddamn umbrella

the poem happens to include something about comfort:

According to psychology,
every kind of comfort is a compromise:
otherwise everything you get is counterfeit.

Zang Di, “Everything is Riddles Series”

hmmm


driving home from a dinner party i have a hard time staying on the road, not because i had too much to drink (one cocktail) but because the full moon is right there hanging over the ridge and i keep wanting to turn my head and look

it’s the best kind of discomfort

wanting to feel
the moon on my skin
blossoming pear

April Diary 14: cardinal, coyote, owl

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
This entry is part 13 of 31 in the series April Diary

Dear April there’s a cardinal nesting beneath my bedroom window

she’s sitting on three speckled eggs


our first hot day. sitting on a bench in the woods where i swear the same two or three bluebottle flies keep landing on me no matter how many i kill. no wonder people used to believe in spontaneous generation

the Zang Di book has already proved its utility as a flyswatter. well done Zephyr Press


Stir-fried pork and asparagus is a starting point for poetry.

Zang Di (tr. Eleanor Goodman)

i like this guy. his mind moves in interesting ways


this too in the middle of a well-used trail is language

coyote calling cards

hypothesis (clears throat): the invention of symbolic language by humans was essential to make up for the lost richness of meaning our more distant ancestors accessed through their noses

there’s a profusion of trailing arbutus blooms this year like nothing we’ve seen here in 52 years. not sure why. though i do have some hypotheses…


it’s maybe a bit unusual in the modern world to know exactly where you’ll someday be buried. i noticed today a porcupine has been littering the ground all around with spruce twigs (they’re messy eaters)

my future gravesite
old puffball
blowing smoke


barred owl calling up in the woods, just one disapproving-sounding who! at a time

for years, my ex heard me talking about bard owls and wondered what made them so poetic


sitting just inside the edge of the woods is a completely different experience from sitting on my front porch less than 100 feet away. a more vulnerable experience, especially after dark. a humbler experience

(when did humility stop being a virtue asks the old crank)

the porch offers the remove of civilization. a roof blocks most of the sky—it’s no wonder suburbanites long ago ditched porches for back decks

The Hollow (48)

This entry is part 48 of 48 in the series The Hollow

half underground
as it joins the river
Plummer’s Hollow Run

 

Little Juniata

the name alone
is a river

 

no road sign

it’s not easy to find
the middle of nowhere

 

coda

self-check

a black-legged tick
burrowed in

The Hollow (47)

This entry is part 47 of 48 in the series The Hollow

railroad crossing

all the train horns
I hear in my sleep

 

in the unloved woods
between train tracks and river
needles and condoms

 

a shirt abandoned
by the fire ring

homeless campsite

 

floodplain

mosquitoes turning blood
into whine

The Hollow (46)

This entry is part 46 of 48 in the series The Hollow

at the bottom of the mountain
a small mountain
of gravel

 

riprap

just enough soil
for anise root

 

where the hollow empties
its silence into the gap
old cellar holes

 

locked gate

stroking the touch-me-nots
so they burst

The Hollow (45)

This entry is part 45 of 48 in the series The Hollow

in this foreign land
Norway maple leaves turn
ugly

 

upside-down somehow
in my phone’s photo

false Solomon’s-seal

 

backwater

stream-blurred trees come into
sharper focus

 

Keep Your Dog on a Leash

the notice board co-signed
by porcupine teeth

The Hollow (44)

This entry is part 44 of 48 in the series The Hollow

tall hemlock
nearly dead from adelgids

unfeathered

 

every year more rain

railroad noise burrows
into the ferns

 

that ice avalanche

my brother’s mark on a tree
lost to moss

 

two faces
on the side of a beech

one has no mouth

The Hollow (43)

This entry is part 43 of 48 in the series The Hollow

200 years old
or ten thousand

former road/streambed

 

rhododendron trunk

bare as high as a starving deer’s
neck can stretch

 

elevation measured
by the number of unripe
spikenard berries

 

slow-creeping slope

all the tree boles curved
to keep their balance

The Hollow (42)

This entry is part 42 of 48 in the series The Hollow

whispering against
the road from both sides

endless water

 

backhoe toothmarks

our complicated relationship
with the mountain

 

gabion wall

the quarried stones softening
with moss at last

 

a beech log’s pale skin
beginning to rupture

that rich ferment

The Hollow (41)

This entry is part 41 of 48 in the series The Hollow

38 years old

the one-acre blowdown
is all grown up

 

how big was that wind

twin basswood trunks
still stretch wide

 

one beech limb
has grown back into the tree

the storm was too much

 

they heard the wind
a half mile away

the hollow’s own howl