Last night a girl on TV said
"If we were supposed to go outside we wouldn't have houses." A fellow in NYC could, I suppose, live his whole life without ever stepping foot on real soil, always on concrete, always seeing the skyline, never the sky.
Even here in the middlewest we have lost some of the grit of living out-of-doors. Our suburbs are as phoney as the color on women's the lips these days. Manicured lawns, parks without a single plant out of place. If deer or coyotes or geese intrude, we complain. The animals ruin our idea of a straight line.
I don't like sleeping on the ground, but perhaps we should do some of this, become animal to some degree again, taste where we came from.
You cannot cry "Ah, wilderness" if you yourself will not be wild.
Clear, blue sky. Crisp, sharp air. A very cold morning. It is at least zero, perhaps colder.
I think I would be "Longshadow in the Morning." It is when I feel most alive.
The wind is blowing from west to east. A crow on snow just north of Fairwater. Which is crusted more, crow or snow? Crow rides the cusp of sorrow, he is lost in his bowl of loneliness. Now he climbs the cold ladder of air into the blue funk of sky. You go, Crow.
What a silly girl. This is really lovely.
Posted by: Sharon | February 02, 2007 at 09:48 PM
Thanks, Sharon. I sometimes use a similar logic when I don't want to go out for my walk. "If God wanted me to exercise, why did he give me such a nice couch?"
Oh, yeah, I know - so I'll have some place comfortable to sit when I come back from my walk!
Posted by: Tom Montag | February 03, 2007 at 09:26 PM