BLOG CARNIVAL: "Scenic Scribbles: The Environment of Writing"

"In my room, the world is beyond my understanding; 

But when I walk, 

I see that it consists of 

three or four hills and a cloud."

--Wallace Stevens

I. Noon

The wind is blowing. Hard. I find myself leaning into the wind just as the trees bend, my red hair flying all over the place, wild (which, I imagine, makes me look like somewhat like Medusa).

I'm in the midst of something powerful here.

The wind's throwing itself against windows--thump thump thump, thump thump thump--and pushing me to dance across the earth.

So I walk. And with each step I take, I feel more and more the solidity of my body, the heaviness of my feet hitting the ground. It feels fantastic. Like I have a purpose! Like I finally know what I'm born to do here on Earth--WALK! And so I walk faster, face-forward into the wind, looking to the trees, remembering how their branches shivered in the winter. Now, their limbs are shaking off the chill, using the wind to twist and turn, wishing the sun on every inch of their skin.

I wish it on mine, too. And the pink that it leaves behind.

"Walking is nearly as natural as breathing. 

Most of us don't remember learning how--

it's just something that happens. 

And when it does

--one foot in front of the other, 

one foot in front of the other--

thoughts are free to go skipping over the landscape 

like thistledown on the wind."

--Cathy Johnson

II. Haiku

The thorny branches
of the bush--purple-red--clasp
a small white feather.


III. When running...


...I imagine the wind is my breath, so that I'm never short on supply.
...I mentally note the point on my path where I can't smell exhaust anymore (near the corner of Beeler and Colorado).
...I watch a Jack Russell terrier chase 3 rabbits out of his yard in just one sprint.
...I listen to the many twittering and whistling bird-songs, awaiting the moment when they merge in my ears, becoming one big, bird chorus (not to be confused with Big Bird chorus).
...I notice the way untamed plants grow together into one big tangle, their natural instinct to latch onto each other.
...I smell the cold--like how the freezer smells, only smokier. And planty...er.
...I see that the grass is greening again, and the buds are back.
...I see rabbits nibbling on grass, squirrels scampering up tree trunks, and robins fluffing their feathers. I like to pretend these animals' actions are testament to their manners. Which would mean that rabbits are rude and skittish, and that squirrels are also skittish, though they make good eye contact. And robins? They're cocky, but with beautiful voices. Which means that I love them AND their red, heart-shaped bellies.

"Everybody who's anybody longs to be a tree."

--Rita Dove 

IV. Morning Drive


7:28AM. There are two geese walking across the Parker/Havana intersection. Why don't they fly?


V. The Redheads

I take pleasure in the fact that the two cherry blossoms in our front yard are home to red-headed sparrows.

If I sit very still on the porch, they collect on the braches in bunches, shouting out single chirps to each other.

Now and then, they turn their bitty beaks to look at me, and I nod in return. Redhead to redhead.

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy 

is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. 

Some see nature all ridicule and deformity...

and some scarce see nature at all. 

But to the eyes of the man of imagination, 

nature is imagination itself."

--William Blake

VI. The Parting

Branches. They really do resemble limbs, don't they? Like hands and arms, all reaching out to be held.

"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. 

May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you--beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."

--Edward Abbey

Now go read the other Blog Carnival participants!

http://theonticbluestocking.blogspot.com/

http://erinbery.blogspot.com/