Casi no hay quién pasa por áqui en el sábado solitario sábado de las ausencias

cuyos ángeles, de bocas cerradas posan detrás de las ventanas del piso más cercana al cielo.

Es el sábado de tu silencio. Sin tu voz, tus palabras se manifiestan hasta en las llamadas de los pájaros

para las cuales no tengo respuesta sino aproximarme más aun a la tierra: yo no sé del lenguaje de las alas.

The female cat was sleeping next to me on the couch, as I watched a movie. Sleeping, I thought: suddenly she sat bolt upright, stared out the window, and started that guttural growling of hers.

I know better by now than to doubt that growl. I put my head down next to hers and followed her gaze. Nothing.

“So what’s up, Minstrel?” We sat unmoving for half a minute, intermittent low noises of disapproval from my little companion.

Some of the hardest physical work in recent memory is 72 hours on the Improv dance floor.

Also, the most rewarding. I haven’t built a house, or surveyed for a map, or planted a garden. But by listening listening listening I’ve followed the sprite of movement, and on her scent traced the outline of home; through repetition memorized (in the body’s threads and cords) the navigation lines I might follow to get there; and inadvertently collected in these outstretched arms so many wild foods along the way – fruit of this adventure – that I am fed.

- ONE -

An hour ago as the day was leaning west, I was pulling east, bringing the laundry in ahead of the dew. It smelled of light and fresh air and flowers: I can’t wait to sleep on today’s mountain air made linen. Deciding I needed a little music, and finding no other singers around the house – a problem that needs work, yes – I took my guitar in hand, headed back out to the deck, tuned up, and settled into some familiar songs.

There was only one thing made a sound like that, and it was death. This wasn’t a mouse-death, nor a chipmunk-death (with two hunting cats around, there is plenty of that small pleading going on, day in, day out): it was a bigger animal; whatever was going down was doing so just over the lip of the hill, beneath my deck; and only one cat was indoors.

In the time it took you to read the first four words of that paragraph, I was already out the sliding door, leaning over the deck, wondering if my male hunter was no longer predator, but prey. What a terrible shrieking, sound of struggle.

- 1 -

Look at that moon! And over there, Venus is a diamond. While this campfire warms my feet, the breeze nods itself to sleep, and the river (whose unceasing flow is an unremarked inspiration) hushes along on its gentle, downhill slide…

There is much to be said of city life — but the less said, the better.

We can make smaller circles in the trees, just out of sight of those agitated centers. Here where embraces are slower and quieter, where we do more to nourish ourselves and our neighbors, and less to stoke a Machine whose engines carry others to others’ destinations.

Late last night I arrived home after looking for Home: here the footprint, here the small harvest, here the collected years of living; there (wherever There is), the path leading on, the planting for spring, the arrow’s arc.

I see that, as experiences accumulate, the urgency of a moment is softened slightly. Or, if I am the agent of my change and not the world, I take ownership of the softening: I begin to mistrust urgency. So many use emergency as proof for arguments that have no basis… when it’s only another mask for fear, and one that we don’t often recognize. It’s only a fear of time, when time defines us.

The mountain was covered with a veneer of snow

while I slept, while I didn’t sleep, the silver light of the moon filtered through leafless branches and lit the earth, shadow-spirits walking. Each time I woke, it was brighter outside, and the light spilled through a different window.

I was roused first by the silence after sound

as though something that had teetered on a shelf was undone by a mote of dust, had lost its balance and fallen with a single clatter into my dreams – and I startled as though someone called my name – so that apparently, without cause, there was effect. A ghost is nothing more than accumulated, unnoticed events; if you pay close attention to your life, there’s no such thing as a ghost. If you’re asleep, if your eyes are closed while they are open, you are constantly alarmed by everything you could not expect.

I love the land, and I love it best when I am sharing it.

The approach to the property, as the highway leaves Wilton and leans into a slow ascent, as it curves to follow the hill’s hips, as it dips into the warm valleys, then feels its way toward the North Pack by narrower and narrower ways, calls up so many memories: of the White Mountains (if not in altitude, then in presence); of the Southwest (if not in aridity, then in silence); or of the Boundary Waters in Minnesota (if not in liquidity, then in spirit)…

Longe das planícies fúnebres onde contra o inverno cultivam grãos suas raízes ténues e fúteis frente ao frio iminente e a foice nas mãos tragei o ar inspirador do mar de tudo nascente.

Foi longe das planícies inmensuráveis as léguas ou as horas, os desejos… entre aquele passado e este presente quantas guerras quantas mortes acompanhando tréguas quantos enterros e flores de caixão quantas orações de despedida batizando vidas desviadas ou vias novas a chamar.