A WIND TOO WARM

Hot go the forests and fields as the wind comes through. Yet, the breezes are as if dry and do not assuage anything. That’s okay. The shaded forest paths, wet from the night’s rain, still hold remnants of the storm. Some dewy moss and water logged trunks, the moist earth, not dried yet from the heat, and of course the most artistic, poetic, of the bunch…the water droplets that wait languidly on leaves. They are round, sometimes oval, - and glisten like diamond drops in the bright day. What else? Lots of bees, insects, dragonflies and wasps. They are hard at work- perhaps their life cycle is not long. So different from the water droplets and co-existing in the same sphere of environment. So there it is, - the old tree swaying, - the oppressive heat like the tropics or sub-tropics. A wind too warm. And the flying small creatures licking or sitting or pollinating or other. All at once. All in the stillness and then the wind and then the stillness once more.

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THE MORNING STAR (WHICH YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO SAY FOR A FEW REASONS)

It was early and we were trying to beat the heat and the crowds both. We were up with the morning star and out on our way. Reluctant for a second to say ‘morning star’ because it’s generic, prosaic, colloquial to say star. That is why Charles Bukowski said somewhere not to ever, ever use the word ‘star.’ Also, - if I remember correctly, - Behold a Pale Horse author, - William Cooper, said that Lucifer was referred to as the morning star. Now that’s not good! But both are dead, - one from cancer and one from a shootout with the police. Besides, - when I say morning star, I simply mean the sun, - without symbol, allusion, reference, mythology, and so on. The morning star, the sun, - is more than enough. What else could you need? And I noticed the farmer was up with such- and probably is- old but spry and alert, - driving, walking, and talking. Yesterday he was cutting down trees and driving a tractor. Who would need books and writing and silly romantic notions, French Existentialism, Camus, et al.?- American nonsense like bad boy Henry Miller? - who even needs Captain Ahab?- if you own a forest?

Anyways, - we went along there and were greeted with the shade and the breeze and the

solitude. Old woodchips and new shavings, - ferns, chaparral, logs, moss, all the usual suspects. It was the borderline hour coming up, - and could be discerned by a keen sense of feeling, - that it was soon going to go from comfortable to ‘too hot.’ We looked upon some wild flowers in the opening at the end that held purple, pink, red, and white all at once. They seem to have a wonderful scent and I thought often upon seeing them of Baum’s Wizard of Oz, - of the field or hills where Dorothy and her group are lulled fast asleep by the wafted tides of languid scents. Passing by there without slumber,- we looked at sand and a little river bed,- then went inside of the opening and saw crickets, vacant spider webs perhaps abandoned,- and much more. We walked and walked, - but slowly. Old tree fallen over, - the sound of squirrels. Tessa brought back the leg of a deer. - But I don’t know how she found it or exactly where. The coyotes must have caught it and eaten it in the night, leaving or being scared away by someone or something before they could do anything with the leg.

Possibly it was the morning star that caught their attention and told them to retreat, recoil, renounce….

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OKAY WITHOUT THE SEA

A long path that meandered was before us. Half open to the handsome and curt and sure and sturdy suburban roads. Inside of them and about them were byways and hidden parts of more streets, more boulevards, avenues, crescents, et al. Some interesting architecture, splashes of wood built in with stone. Greenery, large windows, high, vertical, and sometimes smaller ones. The sun shone down in late afternoon and cascaded off bits of water and the water looked then like shards of glass. There were exotic and unknown plants,- foiled, juxtaposed as what they were,- stems, leaves, buds,- by the light blue sky with odd clouds together in places and then just blue and blue and blue…

 

The path. It goes like a snake, - a long asphalt snake fallen and flattened from somewhere. I think of how different that world is than the sea of Conrad, - the men in turmoil after the ship has been almost overtaken by water. Then the ship and the morning and the men’s spirits slowly, slowly raise themselves up again like a phoenix, like an awakened flower, like the sun itself. The whole area is quiet, a bit hot, - and only now and then a bit of a breeze comes. It has not rained, - and there is no salt air for there is no sea. But it all has its own quiet charm. Dogs, us, some people, - the slow sound of the odd vehicle up the way, - insects and bees and ducks and other.

There is a long wooden and steel bridge. Under it the water is too still. I wish that the water

flowed, as if in overflow from some series of summer storms. We are sometimes thick with stillness, too thick. Conrad would not like it there, though it was beautiful at moments. I think he would wonder where the drama was, and not find it in the floating duck, the working bee, the silent old Oak or the settled and content passersby. There is really no shop, no wares, and no people calling out across the busy vibrant afternoon air. No.

But there is the path still, and the bridge sits over it dutifully. The ducks are fine with that. And the flower and shrub, feral but standing and growing in accordance with their own logic, - are a bit of life under the late afternoon star. It’s a build up of little roads with the fresh cut lawns, bungalows, little signs demarcating this or that. A little over-civilized, quite safe, and even sleepy. Yet look upon the bird, black and red winged,- cutting through the air in a bee-line,- confident, agile, spry, cool-headed and distinct. 

He will be okay without the sea.

He shall have to be.

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THE TOP OF THE VALLEY AND OTHER

Walking along there I was happy to be back. The dogs needed the air, the freedom, the smells and sights and sounds and all. Their owner also, in the middle morning, inhaled deeply the fragrant smell of wildflowers and fresh summer air. It was shaded and there was time to take an extra long way. We went up the valley ridge. Slowly and relaxed, practically resting as we walked. They scurried off here and there, - down, up, around. Contented. In their element, as it were. There was nobody about, though on the way back we would bump into the old farmer clearing a tree from the path. He would have his medium sized tractor, saw, lumber shirt, jeans, hat, tools, gasoline and other. 

 

Soon enough we went down to where the open fields are at the end of the path. But not before taking a moment and just looking around. See, at the top of the valley we were all alone in a great solitude. We were, as we always are, part of the bird song and rustle of leaves from the breeze. It’s a sacred sort of place, you just have to clear your mind a bit and settle, rest, be, observe, don’t judge one way or the other. The tree tops still covered us and there were purple flowers, red berries, and wild raspberry bushes about to bud.

Going into the open area, many patches of wildflowers swayed in the light wind. Rising up to meet the sun were yellow ones, white ones, and some pink species also. In the middle, a sandpit, a large tree, and a couple old tractors, one with bushes growing out of its insides like quiet green flames.

Dozens of plants, strange, peculiarly shaped, and bees and hornets hovering all around them, are doing work on their leaves and little buds. They didn’t bother me in the least, and let me take their photos. In fact,- so hard at work and happy they were, I don’t think any of them even noticed me.

Going back,- here and there, we take the long way,- the back roads,- and notice an old bike for decoration, a small church that looks like a one room affair made of handsome bricks and an A-Frame or upside down V-shaped roof accompanied by the same but smaller as an entrance. The old steps, a bit rusted near the bottoms of railings, just wait quietly in the sun. The little sign next to the big sign announces that there will be no Sunday school for the months of July and August- or something like that…

And we continue and go off. On either sides are sprawling fields and loams, long drives under old trees, sometimes a hawk or a group of hawks circling under the sun,- and the rest,- the wild grasses, wooden posts, the larger world of the countryside- huge barns- red, silver seeming,- white,- even a grain elevator or two. Inside all of those worlds are surely microcosms, - and that is where insects and bees, small flowers new trees, and perhaps even phantoms from other worlds reside…

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