Boxed In

I am in the part of the woods where the Satyer live, amongst the shadowed trees on the east side of Black Lake. “Hello old trees,” I greet the tall ones. You remember me? You remember us, here?

I know he felt the woods, or he wouldn’t have come here with me so many times. So there must be some truth in him. These are a parcel of thoughts as I walk the loop of wet trail, getting outside for the art of stretching both body and mind--fresh air and sky to breath in, trees and water, to be shown the very nature of truth.

There is no one here and that’s what makes the outside so alive! But, also somewhat creepy, I don’t know where everybody went? Notice, there are ever fewer outside. Today, my mind is on more men than him. My River-man, who carried a book of out-of-doors, under his arm instead of a phone and Karl Ove who writes out for children of the 80’s, showing how we all slip into isolated oblivion.

We once sat here on this bench in the outside chapel, me in fact in the very same place. I offered you, and you refused, an openness my father showed me before he slipped into his gooey-canoe-cocoon of opioid safety. Tap out, tap out! I am tapped out!

Now, as I look around to no one, I see that I get all of the green, leaves and needles to myself and not the ironed out Presidents, the Gods of the new world! They’re winning at keeping us in boxes, strings and lines and fracking operations of strip malls across all of America, of BOX stores! Fuck the WALLmart where you can build yourself into anything by buying cheap televisions and phones, any ‘ole cage you like, a playpen to sit like the Kings Unicorn, one of the seven tapestries. After all, it’s all been prophesied in this epic era, I imagine how the words march out of the Holy Book—are forming long tendril lines, the chrysanthemum petals are swiftly layering themselves up now that the pattern has been figured. Why so many mute and dumb?

Once while here, Chris and I crawled all the way out—went to the very edge, the periphery of clear-cut and saw how our forests are now cordoned off postage-stamp-sized, glorified, what only a hundred years ago would be considered merely a park and how that is all we have now—these small and sanctified playgrounds equipped with fees and many signs and rules—there will be no running away!

And then I pass the place where Chris once, on bended knee, washed his face in a city ditch to underscore the ludicrousness of such we’ve saved the earth assertions! The Gods are right that we can’t stop our Maker, but those who want to plug off oil, well, yes, they are right too because we all want to continue to breath in case God forgives us, bestows us with healing, fix-it miracles!

How can I not believe in miracles when some like snowflakes are beginning to accumulate, falling gently, magical-glowing, on top of my head—see me turning white? And, the Oregon grape is talking to me! They take a chance, bushes and trees, reaching to grab my shoulders, to speak in breeze, because I am the only soul here and maybe for days?

I feel people trying to pull me back in. When it comes down to it nobody knows why someone does (and does it matter?) one learns to know that whatever happens the most is the truth of who a being is, meaning that what you do the most is the truth of who you are. That’s how our childminds learned, so that is the inverse of how I work, the psychology.

Sometimes my thoughts are convoluted—they get scrambled and taken away, yet I still Know it’s Gods’ way of stopping me from sharing what the others aren’t ready for yet—

There have always been prophets and saviors, but rarely are they accepted and named, honored only years after their deaths. What is really worth more for your imprint, a human need, or desire to live on in this world past death. How so to find a way in making themselves something lasting—IN famous? Oh, to last on past death! So what hopes and has the potential to last for centuries never mind only one generation--two max, if you are most lucky? ART is the practice of God. Only a repetition of experiencing self outside of, which brings the recognition of full inclusion. For those who find ways to join the two (life and death/beyond) that is the circle formed, no matter if it’s scored, written, filmed for the masses, in that circle all has begun spinning!

A crowned jay just yelled at me! Too close to his nest! A giant tree fell across the path, smashed a bush of holy holly still decorated in red berries as February forms her F’s. I climbed under, a limbo squat I wasn’t so sure if my knees bent so low, I might give and sink into deep, cold mud, but I made it.

Does the ibis fly heavily away from her nest when an outsider approaches, or over to protect her real nest? We find the questions and messages in the simplest, waving lake reeds, cedar bows pulled across our cheeks, the skylight opening.

I pass on the roadway a church on the hill, yellow with brown trim, covered in moss and a sign that reads: You are invited!

I think should you and I try going to all of the churches? See who goes to them these days?

I pass a homeless man and meet his eyes, both of us dubious of one another and considering I’ve seen nobody else, I wonder if there really are no more homeless, just a mirror of everyone else who no longer goes outdoors? What, no! None of us want to see that we are fat and independent and like two-year-old's stomping our feet denouncing God!?

Have you noticed that if you are outside nowadays and you are not wearing fluorescent pinks, greens or dayglow orange, than you could be mistook for a homeless person--especially, if you left the house wearing flannel and jeans without combing your hair?

In considering the film my daughter experiences between her and her father, I am that fault that has caused a wall. For in fully seeing her, he has to see the truth of me and how much I really was holding in rather than going out on a limb, in order to hold us in an US. He’s never faced the dark part he took in our Us, our family, again, OUR us. And, his new girlfriend came into his life as a shoulder to cry on, one voice that damned another free woman and loves screens and continues to make it easy for his eyes to blind on boxes because she is very much invested in keeping our us, in the form of her, apart—though I am no longer holding. My daughter can be everything I wasn’t able to—she shines as bright as the Sun, her namesake. Will she feel/fill/meet the sky with warmth, or keep tight in a box to hold his hand?

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Image: The Unicorn is in Captivity and no longer DEAD, one of seven to be seen at the Cloisters in N.Y.
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