blueberry barrens near Georges Pond, Franklin, Maine

If I could find my way to the egg on the pedestal, if I could find my way to the walking rock…

No table salt, no laughing pepper. No funny farm, no moldy vegetables.

Rot in a garden, where do we see that rot, the heavy mosses, the packed earth of the path? The beaten borders, crumbling boundaries? The edge trees fallen into the river, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing, in a death flirtation with the current? Where do we see that?

Where do we see the planes? How far away are they? The red light blinks in the sky at night and there you are, another person.

8/29/88

Things to remember:

Eli is taking me on a walk along the swamp and up the side of the knoll. He was very serious and woodsmanlike, pointing out tracks, a bird’s nest, good footholds.

A double rainbow up at the top of the knoll. Natalie, Eli, Lainie and I ran up to see it. They talked about who made rainbows. Natalie mentioned the Grand Canyon showed there had been a sea over the earth many years ago. Eli responded to the claim that God made this happen by stating that now we knew it was really Erosion. (He was talking about the Grand Canyon, not the rainbow.)

Taking a walk up to the other knoll in the dark. Lorna and her girls, Natalie and I went up to meet Bruce and the boys who were having a wienie roast. The moon was very bright – at first we thought it was their fire.

Do I know what I’m doing?
The simple answer is no
I had fun coming home today
I’m attached to this machine
Helen Adam has been on my mind

There’s a possibility
It forms in the chest like a sculpture
It’s not necessary to coddle it so much
Only invite it to participate
Even through a machine.

I enjoy these automatically produced titles in this automatically generated all-caps format. They promise more than they deliver though. When I open the files to read them, I’m always disappointed.

The Body in Pain, on Ferndando Botero’s Abu Ghraib paintings