Did you see any slow ones?

the day after christmas my family and I traveled up to Kilmarnock, VA, the birthplace of mother and home of my uncle--who i haven't seen since i was excited about count chocula. i will mention my mother grew up on a farm and much of the country is still planted with corn and sparse housing. upon hearing about my trip to Kenya, i was asked by my uncle if i saw any "slow ones"? puzzled, i asked what they are as no one i met there would consider themselves of the "slow" tribe.

"well, the slow ones are all gone," i was told, "they were eaten by the lions."
speechless, i looked down at my shoes.

My Song for East Tennessee

White cotton linens hanging in the still, refrigerated air. Silhouettes of the sun above, sliding west, casting diagonal shapes over grass and twig. They hang on the line as if enchanted. Never is the line a restriction, a shackle; the line is simple and well-natured, long living all seasons. The linens know only the beds, the tables, and the backs of those who use. Placemat mentality. But the line handles the linens with the tips of its fingers, as you would the hand of a newborn. Filled with blood. And they dance with the wind and the sun, playing with the passing air, and brushing the damp earth. The light upon fabric a true reflection of the solar globe beaming down, now waning, but softly engaged in this evening chance at a dance with the bright young gowns freed from duty. They exhale and flap slow as if immersed in water. A ball.

The element they celebrate—perhaps, embody—is the sea far from these mountain valleys. It is the sea they know of through rumor trickling back from the wide rivers to the meandering creeks and streams. Spring rains can’t wait to fall to her rivulets and usher into her bounty. The lore is rich in the clouds, you see, and it is told in volumes of painted poem scripts. The birds bring news of unseen endless fields of water, unplanted. No farmers or cars. No fences. No trees to tie taut. No one to feed: only life as life and not life as source or resource. Filled with reason. A drop among immeasurable comrades, loves, enemies, fathers, sisters, pot holders, toasters, motorcycles, pages, chalk boards, cupboards, cookie jars, and nights of light.



I wrote this is in the outer edge of winter in Johnson City, TN, my home for the past year. It was a place of surprising movement and people. I've now reached the end of my stay there and look upon its brown hills with a smile.

"It's so good to be home"

I hoped to hike along the dikes to the False Cape Wildlife Refuge in Va. Beach today. However, due to seasonal closures I had to stay north of the refuge, spending my time searching for wild pony and pig. But, all I found were hoof prints and mounds of shit.
Despite the unexpected set back I found blanket warmth and solace near the dunes, eating lunch with the gulls. The surf was calm, breeze light, sun bright. It was a beautiful way to spend a "winter" afternoon.
Coming home is never as fully realized until I see the ocean. It spreads peace across my skin immediately. My time in the mountains is still long, but I'd love to find more bodies of water in my horizon and home. The sea will always be there, whenever I need it.

Portsmouth

A Fountainhead

For much of my life the sight of nature claiming it's place despite man's best intentions would reinforce my sense of place: as man constantly subject to nature. To say this is not to state that we are at the will of nature, nor in control. It's something different. In participating in this thought process I have continually lost sight of the beauty of the production--e.g., this tree standing without regard for the landowner's past intention to erect a fence through it-- in order to champion nature's resilience or chastise man's greed.

Growing up during decades of rampant sprawl and consumerism, I have witnessed the power of man to destroy--and interpreted it as such. But, what I never recognized within that destruction was the creation. We (man and the natural world) are in a process of mutual destruction and creation; and further we do not represent opposing forces, but an interwoven whole. Truthfully, much of what we Americans build and buy today represents little respect for any notion of integrity. However, in recognizing the potency of nature to withstand these forces, I must also admit my parallel awe at the creative forces we have at hand. Accordingly, I can now look upon an architectural feat and an endless river valley and see, without disparity, the power of nature and man to build magnificent kingdoms.

Perhaps our current notions of environmentalism and natural preservation lack the understanding that balance in this global ecosystem will not result from fortifying the separations between human and everything else, but by simply acknowledging that separation does not exist.

The Reason for the Season

Hay bale twilight

-photo of Kilimanjaro's sunrise courtesy of Matt Schnable



Speaking softly as words take flight with doves.

Grass of summer,
Leaf of fall,
Dwindling light glittering in the corner of your eye;
We three bodies dirty with childhood:
Scraped knees, brown nails--
We don't go home to the endearing admonishment,
We prepare our own meals now
Upon stoves of transience,
Dusk of yesterday creeping into the sunrise.

Running down a hill with ship sails across our backs:
Flight flapping without tie or hold,
Without shores or ports;
We pirates, nationless and radical
We speak with the wind,
Rather than trained tongue,
Oh! Endless white caps and
Equal swirling flat--
Punctuated with bubbles of teeming life below,
In the place of the flag we burnt
Flaps joyful winds pinned to our breasts--
As emblems of the past we breathe.

Now rest with the calming median oceans,
Neither tumult nor tempest shall flare,
As we lie on our sails, and feather wind.