Writings From A Would Be Beatnik

Two Years Ago Today

in

grass clippings are hitchhiking on the bottoms of my feet as i cross the lawn and i have the milky dew of the figs i just picked dripping down my fingers. 

the sun reaches my skin through the cotton shirt i’m wearing. because i’m moving, and because it’s early in the day, its rays aren’t yet powerful enough to make my skin dewy like that of the figs. but you can tell, even this early, that it’s only a matter of time before the heat will be labeled oppressive.

the crate myrtle is in bloom and the river is shushing by as it always does. i have to pause for a moment to remember what day it is. “...Wednesday” i think to myself “it’s Wednesday...”

the half moon brick steps lead me up into the house and i make a half hearted attempt to leave the grass clippings outside, though i am sure some end up trailing behind me on the well worn carpet. 

i select a knife from the chopping block in the kitchen and hesitate for a brief moment at its odd shape, only mildly considering that it’s probably not the right knife for this specific job. 

no matter— it’s sharp. 

and now ribbed moss is imprinted onto the backs of my thighs as a sit with a plate in the center of my crossed legs

and i eat the slices of rose colored fruit off of my lap. 

—A journal entry from August 29, 2018

This Is Virginia In The Summer

in

You have to close your mouth when biking at night.

This is Virginia in the summer.

The air is thick and hung with winged creatures.

The moon winks at me from the water filled ditch, newly filled after the afternoon’s down pour.

The low-hanging magnolias unfold their skirts towards the grass beds, entangled in a flirtation with the sweet scented leaves.

I cut some Queen Anne’s Lace with my pocket knife and revel in its silhouette against the dusk.

Petal pushing, pedal pushing.

This routine is one of the few I perform without fail.

A small days end respite from the unrelenting speed of time.

My bike basket fills with little pink slips of paper.
They hold a promise of something more if I choose to exchange them at the post office down the road.

(I never do take them with me, somewhat absentmindedly but more so as an act of defiance of the one mean post master in town…)

I hoist my bike up onto my shoulder and ascend the porch stairs 
1-2-3-4-5-6
and into the house.

I run upstairs to my computer, where I can record my thoughts faster than any other medium.

My feet are so hot I start to pull off my boots (because I wear boots year round…) but I’m afraid I’ll lose the words so I stop half way.

Typing feverishly with one boot on and one boot off.

“Are you awake?”
He asks.

“Yes but I can’t talk right now.
I don’t want to lose the words I just found.”

Goodnight House

in

i feel at home within the stillness of a house at night

i rarely waver in the dark or quiet spaces of a slightly unknown place

for there is a lightness there

it is inside these spaces that i find my place

amongst tired floors and resting furniture

it is me and the small-slow creeping things

(unsure as i am if the dark impressions of motion are on the floor or inside of my mind—there is even comfort to be found in that too)

the creaks and groans are the tones of hidden hellos specific to these walls

the things heard are of my own creation or that of the inherent nature of the frame i’m inside of

it is on and under these sloped sleeping lines that i am able to recenter and remember my sense of self that is now and at once a mirrored home: the inner home of me

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Across The Sky

in

The days begin with the slow saturation of the suns rays kissing and caressing the landscape gently awake, like you would your lover who’s still asleep next to you, deep under the warm darkness of sleep.

The sun always arises before the land. 

Dutiful in its routine. 

In the way that you too are always the first to awake before the form in bed next to you. 

A morning person. 

I wonder if the sun ever gets weary in its lonely trek across the sky, day after day, fated to a pre-planned path of journeying. Only able to have temporary, though distant relationship with the land and the things upon it. 

Too far to ever have much of a chance to get to know the moving things down below, though it’s impression in turn upon them is lasting.

But, I suppose it does have the moon, if only for a brief moment, to play for a time with at dusk on some days. When both the moon and the sun are parallel in the sky from one another. 

The moon is in fact the only one who knows a little of what it’s like to be the sun. 

More so than any earthbound thing. 

Two celestial friends. 

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To Live Again

in
To Live Again

I am sitting cross legged on the earthen floor, thick patterned blankets between me and the dirt. It is dark inside the dome, which is made of 16 willow saplings tied together with cloth and string and covered in worn blankets and I am centered on the doorway, a square of piercing light that frames the fire a half dozen yards away where the fire keepers are excavating the lava stones, Grandfather, from the molten embers. 


“Mitakuye Oyasin,”


I am inside of a sweat lodge, the ceremony, Inipi which means “To Live Again” is to purify and place ourselves in a position of openness to send prayers for ourselves and those we love who are suffering.


“Nothing will hurt you here”

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Dawn

in

the end of this season is nearing. 

a year of flush faced wonder. 

of physical and spiritual mountain climbing. 

of stripping away and down to the bone, to uncover the essential facts. 

my mind offers up the familiar words i’ve often used to describe this past year, but i am reaching for more. 

‘more’ is perhaps not possible to describe this kind of living. 

this sussing out and stealing in.


the icy ground is verbal in its protest of my warm steps as i walk towards the placid liquid sky.


the night is what greeted me here the first time i called this place home. 

the dark wall of sky pierced through with needling white-light stars.

but now, now it is the mauve maw of dawn. 

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