September

Accident

The ferns are fire in the meadow. Burnt orange licks and fans flames, catches a breeze against the fading grasses. I walk down the road in the growing sun. Morning fog dissipates with the rise of day. Wisps of white tendrils curl over the hills, losing their grasp on the conifers. Metal machines terrorize the roadway. I shiver at the rush of sound and speed; my nervous system contracts with each passing freighter. Breathe in deeply to shake off the tension. Turn to sun. Smell the faint musk of drying goldenrod and aster. Pick up the pace to get home.

A week full of living
which is to say a week of
routine and anti-routine
pain and joy
rhythm and rupture
questions and guesses
chores, work, errands, appointments
walks, naps, pacing, sitting
fog and sun
life is everything
happening
measured in breath
how many do we have?
precious breath

Equinox. Autumn on the horizon, marching over the Vermont hills and mountains that surround me. I ride my old Schwinn Le Tour road bike into town. It’s a well-worn simple machine; 35 years or so old. Comforting, as long-held possessions filled with memories at the touch can be. I think about how I should spend some time tuning it up this winter. Clean, grease, replace cables, maybe some wider tires. I think about how I should ride it more often than I do.

Bad thoughts in the night
Bad thoughts in the morning
But you are okay and we
Are drinking coffee together
Darkness to light
Never drink my coffee black

The thick tangle of brush outside the window wants to be thinned. Let some light in. Or a breeze to dry out the wet. The whole place is overgrown. Vines are tearing down the fences, meadow plants weaving through the mesh. There’s an army of red sumac encroaching upon the northeastern corner; it’s taking the compost bin prisoner. What to do? Go after it now with clippers and saws, or wait for winter’s dying to do the work? I’m impatient, looking for something useful do to.

You, ensconced in an other-world with its own diabolical logic
Wrapped in iron gauze
And I, like a ghostly nobody, apart and dumb
Unable to touch you
Your real-world bending, a metal box pressed into obedient oblivion
The pain between us

(I am terrified of the untouchable pain of another person, how I cannot experience or empathize with it, even if I may have had an approximate pain sensation at one point in my life, which, as an able-bodied person, I have not.)

Sunday in the morning
haze of the quiet machine
the house hum
the ringing in my ears
I sit, crossed at X’s
clear in feeling for a small point
that begins a curved line
that connects to the end

“The most beautiful line between two points is anything but straight.”
–Cairn Free, Chris Dodge (early oughts zine maker from Minneapolis, MN)

September