After breakfast, I work in the shop for a couple hours until I feel motivated to make my rounds. I start by visiting the gravel bar where the creek exits the hills. There is water flowing in the creek, finally. There are fewer fingerlings...they have someplace to go. I have someplace to go, but their someplace is more important to them than my someplace is to me. I follow the creek to the cottonwood poem and transcribe it as a favor for A.
Tree Words
1 someday
2 you will find
3 in a desert or a
4 valley of sparkling
5 surfaces
6 hungry though
7 fed your common rations of bland
8 cereals hard tack
9 evaporated cane (?)
10 a still slender puddle
11 your memory will work again you will stand +
12 before two bodies of water two mountains
13 of grass
14 two friendly tableuaxs +
15 unable to enter either - you
16 - out there will sit down here
17 + wait
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| the sentinels |
I follow deer trails and beaver drags through the cottonwoods, coming across a set of sentinel posts - tree trunks planted in the earth...not trees. These were put here for flood protection. Now, they wear an interesting collection of fungi. I come out near the upper end of the lower beach and go out to check the guest register zig-zagging between silt patches. Coyote, raccoon, deer, seagulls. A mature bald eagle flies over. Two immatures follow a minute or two later.
I walk down to the far end of the lower meadow. I find two pieces of art installation tangled in the trees. They are parts of a painting that was washed away by last winter's flood. I debate whether to collect them, but for the time being, I decide to leave them untouched. When I cut back into the cottonwoods, I end up at the small beaver dam....I always end up here when I cut through these cottonwoods - without intention. There are fresh trimmed branches. When I come out of the cottonwoods, I can see the barn, and like a workhorse with a weak driver at the reins, I head straight for it (my dad tells me these things).
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| the shop/barn/studio/hideout |
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