rough places return

hard even for me to express today.

i'm uprooted and laying exposed on the ground. not once but twice.

the "keeper" of neal ave has indeed dealt with the downed tree. it's one way. no nuance, no intuition; brute force. some mammoth earthmover who leaves a deep and determined track, has bulldozed the felled trees. nothing tending or caring to be sure. simply in a giant stroke pushed to the side. two trees now, one fully clothed yet and one bare lay parallel to the road. they don't fit easily there; the foot and roots are exposed to all. to deal with them and force them to a new place the avenue itself is again changed. a new widened and hurt place; looks like a combat zone that has nothing to do with openings to the field, only a harsh dealing with obstacles.

my heart is so bulldozed. not only about megan and jeremy although they come today. there is such heartache in our family. fronts known and fronts unknown. young places and aged places.

depths impossible to share.

the smoothed, grassy straight path i wrote of a couple days ago? remember that one? it leads to devestation.

i'm so afraid that i can't help megan. i will see her today.
k

and he reminds me again

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

lee reminds me

"Even in our sleep, pain which can not forget,
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until in our own despair, against our own will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God"

Robert Kennedy – upon the loss of his brother

rough places made plain

completely the wrong picture but i'll change it, just as.......
neal changed this morning.

amazing really what a difference a day makes.
my encroaching sadness that the visual peace of neal avenue was more and more elusive, changed over night. the darkness lurks now only on the edges again and deep in the underbrush. a giant mower smoothed the way today. it's soft now, even cushioned by the long cut grass laying on the way. it's cleared only to the fallen tree for now, but i expect that the "keeper" of neal is aware than more attention is needed. he's not especially gentle with the fallen trees; *that* clearing is a little brusk and uncaring, but in the end more order is what i need to feel.
i hadn't realized quite so much that my open space, my verdent shelter, my most familiar of all paths is tended and managed. by an outsider of all things. and an invisible one at that.
the way to the bench is also smoothed and expanded now. next the corn will grow up to envelope the path. for now the vista is gorgeous and open. as a body of water, shimmering, wavy, vast. peopled of course. i often wonder how many corn stalks are there as my network. the new farmer, a renter and not the owner, has gotten greedy with the land i fear. corn is planted this year, as last. pete always rotated. the stalks are closer together than they used to be; can't tell about the rows until the corn is taller and i can walk there. no way through at the "hole in the wall". the planting is colored outside the lines of the field. pete sees the change. even more, the machinery is all mammoth and feels conquering not nurturing fm planting to harvest. nothing in between really either, no neal avenue tending, no visits to look over it.
but, the corn aside, today was a surprise. that is supposed to be MY part, being surprising. how lovely to be on the other end.
i had quit walking on neal ave you know.
was already needing more shade.
k

usually when i'm home i have a candle lighted.

k

usually when i'm home i have a candle lighted.

k

uprooted

there's a tree down on neal this morning. a big one. his roots show. this is one of the ents but not one of the norwegian bachelors. *and* some others went down with him. because they were entwined and near and sheltered.


neal avenue has become a significant metaphor for me. things happen out there, unseen then discovered. the facade is changeless in 20 years but underneath it's tougher and tangly.

life.

the familiarness is still calming and comfortable. i still feel sheltered but the polite distance from the "road" has disappeared. bushwacking comes to mind. but as always verdant, thriving, sprawling, transforming. Of course, the hole in the wall, the beautiful symetrical arching entrance to the field, was changed a couple years ago when one of the sentries fell. More, the people who "clean up" have no sense of the esthetic. parts and pieces are left everywhere, branches rudely piled sideways and the sky gapes through. i don' look that way anymore. the new farmer doesn't make that a field road cutting east to west as pete did, so there isn't the magical aisle that i once enjoyed.

past the norwegian bachelors, the south end now has more significance. the brush has established itself as trees now. the feel is still open, windy, warm but not exposed. the corner-of-my-heart tree has become a doorway now. guess we have three parts. *and* the huge offensive brush pile which brings us to a premature end is home for i think hundreds of things. i'm almost afraid to be near it.

i never make my way to the smith farm anymore. maybe some day when i don't take the dogs.

i guess, facade is right. fences, "brushing", fallen trees, encroachments everywhere. it's essence still?

shelter.
vigor.
grandeur, rough shod version.
change.
wonder.
company.

k