I spent the close of 2006 with my sister in her adopted city, Brooklyn, NY. So much has been said about New York, so many lives tossed in its throngs. I too love the energy of it, its relentless humanness. Everything the modern ages holds dear, asphalt, high rises, a profusion of goods on display. But by the 5th day I dreamed of mule deer, ears thrush with ticks. I dreamt a hillside dense with evergreens.
When I finally made it back to the state park in which I live, I put on my waterproof boots and tromped past the old barns through the mud and brush a half mile to the seasonal waterfall. In the winter, the water pounds the six foot drop, sounding as loudly as the city I had just fled. But unlike the cars and people that travel Brooklyn’s street, the creek is without past or future, without attachment to its own present tense. The rush of water over the rocky face of earth simply is. Its music is not music, is not organized by time. It sounds timbre, the color of.
The day after New Years I rise before dawn. Driving up the valley I see a buck, its neck burdened by antlers. At the crest of the ridge, a coyote walks its leisurely dawn. In this place, this small expanse of something other than human ambition and need, I can breath. It is a life less compelling than the urbanity of others. I write as if to compensate for my disinterest. The coyote pauses at the edge of the road, turns its head to me. Nothing I have ever said or done matters. The moon writes itself in her features.
