Selfheal Prunella vulgaris
Maybe it was on the day the greenhouses opened when the sun made it too hot inside that we had gone down to the blueberry barren to prune. I guess it was the first day that felt like something had changed. That morning I’d watched the light hit a new part of the wall.
Down under the blueberries, pruning them with dull shears. Laying on my back looking at deep blue sky between the branches.
Cutting out what doesn’t need to be there Leaving only what’s left
Three petals fell off the begonia as I swept through the room. I listen to a podcast about Bear’s Ears an insect droning behind Jonah Yellowman’s voice but still snow here. Yellowman says:
“The colors of the sunsets are changing.”
I don’t know what to write anymore.
I’ll write a beginning that feels like an ending Pretty much like every moment
And the next day a high tide Snow down to edge of water Ice on the cold dark hills The sound of the wind, drifts of snow people getting mail in town a rusting anchor out the window.
The ferry loading, unload Clouds and sun and water Water dripping, water melting Pooling up making things wet Water moving, changing, becoming me Going around In many different ways
In the middle of winter my world became very small didn’t seem to go much beyond the farm buildings doors everything in tones of brown-white, dark green no scent in the air but the woodsmoke. Somehow the days passed, I wrote things down or I cooked food In the beginning I had fewer thoughts, but knew later they went deeper, moved along without producing words. ~~ Down on the best grey stone beach, we lolled in cold gravel as the wind turned waves came in. Looking and feeling how smooth everything was, and only from water flowing up against the land. A loon laughed at us for being so lazy while she dove deep to catch fish. I sang a tiny song to myself, the sound of my own breath below the waves or wind my right hand digging into the smooth gravel until it was wet.
And there was as always is my breathing to listen deeply to. And there was as always is a rainbow halo around the sun.
In the middle of winter my world became very small didn’t seem to go much beyond the farm buildings doors everything in tones of brown-white, dark green no scent in the air but woodsmoke. Somehow the days passed, I wrote things down or I cooked food In the beginning I had fewer thoughts, but knew later they went deeper, moved along without producing words. ~~ Down on the best grey stone beach, we lolled in cold gravel as the wind turned waves came in. Looking and feeling how smooth everything was, and only from water flowing up against the land. A loon laughed at us for being so lazy while she dove deep to catch fish. I sang a tiny song to myself, the sound of my own breath below the waves or wind my right hand digging into the smooth gravel until it was wet.
And there was as always is my breathing to listen deeply to. And there was as always is a rainbow halo around the sun.
One morning we dug forty one trenches for paths in beds of freshly tilled soil A bright line of thread marked each one—to keep them straight The idea was to drag the dirt from the upper path down to the lower bed making path and pile of soil in one movement And about noon my hands began to cramp after bringing the soil out of fifteen or so hundred foot long paths. So as we opened the paths, and piled up the beds, I thought about things— Like how to hold a handle best and switching sides But no matter what, things begin to hurt And some part of me says it can’t go on But that part always fades into the background behind lines of thoughts— Like what I did a year ago, how I can’t handle so and so or what someone said How angry I am about certain things Or how sad I am about others But after a while these thoughts stop too, and I hear things And smell the dirt and notice the breeze whistling in the hoophouses nearby Or the seagulls chasing each other Or see metal rake tines pulling gently through soil
We kept going after lunch, moved onto another field I drank water, the ducks had a meeting, the seagulls fought, and I thought: are we filling the world only with beings as adaptable as us? And filling the remainder with anxiety about perishing which keeps it all moving.
The point I’ve found is not to worry about anything I can’t hold in two hands Because it’s impossible to know how to help any of that out there It’s hard enough to help myself, and those around me The wide world we’re told is saveable and helpable is a distraction from what you can do
A rock catches in my rake And must be knocked free with another And I think how my bones themselves won’t last as long as any rock I turn up I won’t be around to see what happens to what I love At least, I consider, I can know what my own hands hold.
I come back to the raking, and my visions clears, I look down at the ground, at my dirty shoes and patched pants, at my hands which are strong and rough but somehow more useful and careful. And I am sad, for they grip nothing that I thought of— only the long, straight, smooth wooden handle of a rake.
Thirty Years
Coltsfoot flower blooms first like a dandelion with no stalk. It grows in rocks where the sun first heats up the ground.
The bees come, and go their hive in the woods their legs bounded round by yellow coltsfoot pollen— always knowing what’s blooming.
They say her language is simple, but the longer I look the more I see. ~~ I turn thirty this summer, so I look at everything I’ve done. I drug a boulder to the hives to watch bees, and as I watched a squirrel ran past my foot. He stopped to look at me for a long time. Then a patch of light appeared and disappeared on the water in the bay. ~~
Working. Noon.
Two loons sing
and listen.
The fog closing in;
lightens spruce tops,
darkens the barn,
hides an island.
