“Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances.”

08 February 2009



a wind that melted snow off the mountain and filled the streambeds with premature spring. the slope to the woodpile a slick of ice, a skin of water against months of snowpack. it takes me seven minutes to move seven feet up the lawn, finding purchase in small pockets of slush. i throw first-cuts too big for the stove back toward the hoosie, stepping stones i hope will hold and not hasten the return trip. unwedging the next stack for burning from beneath some sort of industrial shelving material theres an avalanche of wet wood. the woods wet even underneath, the snow having blown in the spaces between and this morning melted. z. and i traversing the ice ford with help from my thrown stones and they hold. then its a left to the door but theres no help for it so i skid down against the rubbish-can, glad its full and a fine ballast. after that, its a matter of getting through the deeper slush and dog-ends, over the smaller kindling frozen in a jagged lump next to the bench, and through the door. me, in my sundress and boots, marveling at human ingenuity and the wild changing sky.



the stoves kaput so theres no popcorn, i fill a paper lunchbag with a few handfuls of popcorn and tape it shut and nuke it. theres no butter and its the dryest damn popcorn ive ever had. i eat half the bag, marveling at human ingenuity and the wild changing sky.



im distracted. do some housework. let the dogs out to bark and slide around the yard, coming around the corner theres nothing to hold onto on this newly waxed kitchen floor of false spring and they crash against the pickup and slide around under the axles and start away to begin again, the wet happy games of dogs, the glorious smells of themselves and the world in this early melt, the wind bringing all sorts of smell messages and sounds like plastic bags parachuted through. there may be a foot of water in the cellar but im not looking. im looking at the sky, black blue grey white the sun comes out like a goddess and the next minute the world seems bereft of light.



i go out to get extra firewood just to use the little giants causeway i rigged. the moon is clear and cool beyond the trees and shell change shape and color as i drive north to retrieve #4. im nauseous and as soon as he comes in with #1 i feel like a flaming albatross. out into mother night, open and cool and im part of her sweet and easy. night driving along the ridge, the lake and the moon and the open hearted feeling of being abroad in the darkness. its hot milk and the end of part two, then a week begins where i promise a movie and hope for the best.



23 of 365:

1. vanilla
2. frankincense
3. rose
4. chocolate
5. coffee
6. mint chip ice cream
7. ice
8. wood
9. my sister

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"And if the question were asked: What is more real, the mundane or the sublime? most would hesitate before they gave an answer. On the one side, details: say, the aftermath of a breakfast, dirty chipped plates in the sink, their rims encrusted with egg yolk. Against this, the unnameable: small aching heart with boasts, what can you know? Outside the cage of everything we ever heard or saw, beyond, outside, above, there lies the real, hiding as long as we shall live, there stretch and trail the millions of names of God burning across the eons. When all through this our end will come before we even know the names of us.

For many the egg yolk prevails." -L.M.

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well." -V.V.G.

"The perfection of the Absolute where all Becoming stops and pure Being, immutable, timeless, unchanging, hangs forever like a ripe peach upon the bough." -E.A.

"...and the whole incident was incredibly frazzling and angst-rod and filled almost a whole mead notebook and is here recounted in only its barest psycho-skeletal outline." -D.F.W.

"At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards." -H.S.T.

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live." -D.T.
"Cometh a voice: My children, hear; From the crowded street and the close-packed mart I call you back with my message clear, back to my lap and my loving heart. Long have ye left me, journeying on by range and river and grassy plain, to the teeming towns where the rest have gone - come back, come back to my arms again. So shall ye lose the foolish needs that gnaw your souls; and my touch shall serve to heal the fretted nerve. Treading the turf that ye once loved well, instead of the stones of the city's street, ye shall hear nor din nor drunken yell, but the wind that croons in the ripening wheat. I that am old have seen long since ruin of palaces made with hands for the soldier-king and the priest and prince whose cities crumble in desert sands. But still the furrow in many a clime yields softly under the ploughman's feet; still there is seeding and harvest time, and the wind still croons in the ripening wheat. The works of man are but little worth; for a time they stand, for a space endure; but turn once more to your mother - Earth, my gifts are gracious, my works are sure. Instead of the strife and pain I give you peace, with its blessing sweet. Come back, come back to my arms again, for the wind still croons in the ripening wheat."
-John Sandes, The Earth-Mother (excerpt, 1918)