RUDIMENTS, pt. 501
(heretofore blaming)
I guessed it was now, and
I guessed it was my own
problem, but it was tonight
that only again realized it.
I am not here.
-
Walking up Oak Street, it
was dark out, just turned so,
with small traces of the light
which had just been dissolving
away. Right up to Dartmouth;
uh-oh, nothing there. What
I was walking through was
not street or houses, cars and
drives. No. I was not there.
-
I was, instead, amidst the
silence of a vast feathering
of trees, fallen leaves, and
paths. All around me, the
wild woods raised up,
everything that had just
exhausted itself in a Summer
of growth - to this, deep
Fall, broken wonder, death.
As was obvious, I do not
live in the modern world :
my heart beats along the
wonder-path through the
past of all that was. We
have no cardboard of
homes and houses, my
heart and me. Neither.
We walk the dirt-track
lanes unfettered, and these
places have no names.
Now. Now, you may call
them what you will. The
dumb and diminished
names of towns and
streets so vapid and
foolish as to be taken
up by the ogres who
ply the open streets.
I am not there.
-
I don't know how this
ever occurred or arose
for my own being and
self, but here I was placed,
wordlessly misaligned.
I was out of time and
felt no mesh with what
I walked. It was 400 years
ago, and I could mutter
only of that : trails and
weeds and passages
through trees. Nothing
else warranted my
attention. I was but
a staid walker. By
contrast, runners
of the The Iroquois
Confederation, 300
years earlier, could
run the entire 240-mile
Iroquois trail in three
days - which is how
news of events and
messages and schedules
were delivered; in a
constant running of
their fleet messengers
back and forth. Here,
in the fetid Jersey
swamps, of course,
nothing of that sort
was ever needed, yet,
I walked on with the
fuller knowledge of the
locations and coastal
settlements and trade-posts.
I was not there. I had
left my body. It alone
was elsewhere. What
is called the past
today is my own
reality.
-
In many respects I am a
spiritualist, worshiping
spirits and places, trees
and waters. Nothing like
that exists anymore, unless
you'd like to worship statues
and ask for God's favors.
We have places for that
now, but even they are
controlled and kept locked.
You must be on time, and
only show up when appointed.
Walk, don't run. These white
men call them 'churches.'
-
To my back, is the moon;
a five-day sliver of new,
half lost in a milky ring
and a dark sky. I know that
once that was the beacon
men lived by - certainly
these natives and the locals
knew that. At the least; it
marked their time and
their schedules, plantings
and rotations, harvests and
gleanings. That moon throws
the light we live by, reflected,
yes, from day - the solar
beacon that controls what we
do. What we are. There is
a hand-hold for Mankind
on this Earth, but - oddly
enough - it is not ON this
Earth, but above us.
-
Way down at the Missssippi
Delta, women eat the dirt.
Many things exist that we do
not understand, and behind
each lowly shadow is some
exalted reasoning for what we
are. I walk this path, alone;
I understand, however, the
light and the dark, the land
and the water. Everything
that is now neglected and
left forgotten - the fouled
waters, the dispatched land,
has been violated. Left to
die in its vanquished state,
while only a decrepit
manhood proclaims still
its value. Yet, these are
vile ground-creatures of
no value at all.
-
I think of those now on
this land and water -
north some, along the
marshy stream of the tidal
salt waters, to Elizabethtown;
where shore-dwellers hug
the coves and make their
landed forays into higher
grounds. Slowly, slowly
they are cutting their way
upland, in, to reach their
newly settled places.
Elizabeth. Morris. The fields:
West, and Plain, and Scotch.
Roselle. A different breed
of everything is here arriving.
South to me, the point of
land at Amboy too, with
its tall ships and white sails,
brings more and more the
tight and rigid people off
their strange-attired boats.
They walk in straight lines.
They are regiments before
they even reach the land.
-
It will be cold tonight.
I must stop now, and
light a fire here.
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