{"id":17326,"date":"2015-10-09T14:23:08","date_gmt":"2015-10-09T18:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=17326"},"modified":"2015-10-09T14:23:08","modified_gmt":"2015-10-09T18:23:08","slug":"wild-footprints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/wild-footprints\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Footprints"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: Screen capture from Google Street View, which now lets you “walk around” Galapagos with the giant tortoises. For more information, see the Google Maps LatLong blog<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

And Now it’s October<\/strong><\/p>\n

the golden hour of the clock of the year. Everything that can run
\nto fruit has already done so: round apples, oval plums, bottom-heavy
\npears, black walnuts and hickory nuts annealed in their shells,
\nthe woodchuck with his overcoat of fat. Flowers that were once bright
\nas a box of crayons are now seed heads and thistle down. All the feathery
\ngrasses shine in the slanted light. It’s time to bring in the lawn chairs
\nand wind chimes, time to draw the drapes against the wind, time to hunker
\ndown. Summer’s fruits are preserved in syrup, but nothing can stopper time.
\nNo way to seal it in wax or amber; it slides though our hands like a rope
\nof silk. At night, the moon’s restless searchlight sweeps across the sky.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Barbara Crooker [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Our bodies are wild. The involuntary quick turn of the head at a shout, the vertigo at looking off a precipice, the heart-in-the-throat in a moment of danger, the catch of the breath, the quiet moments relaxing, staring, reflecting — all universal responses of this mammal body… The body does not require the intercession of some conscious intellect to make it breathe, to keep the heart beating. It is to a great extent self-regulating, it is a life of its own. The world is our consciousness, and it surrounds us. There are more things in the mind, in the imagination, than “you” can keep track of — thoughts, memories, images, angers, delights, rise unbidden. The depths of the mind, the unconscious, are our inner wilderness areas, and that is where a bobcat is right now<\/em>. I do not mean personal bobcats in personal psyches, but the bobcat that roams from dream to dream. The conscious agenda-planning ego occupies a very tiny territory, a little cubicle somewhere near the gate, keeping track of some of what goes in and out (and sometimes making expansionistic plots), and the rest takes care of itself. The body is, so to speak, in the mind. They are both wild.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Gary Snyder [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a> (italicized portion):<\/p>\n

A Message from the Wanderer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today outside your prison I stand
\nand rattle my walking stick: Prisoners, listen;
\nyou have relatives outside. And there are
\nthousands of ways to escape.<\/p>\n

Years ago I bent my skill to keep my
\ncell locked, had chains smuggled to me in pies,
\nand shouted my plans to jailers;
\nbut always new plans occurred to me,
\nor the new heavy locks bent hinges off,
\nor some stupid jailer would forget
\nand leave the keys.<\/p>\n

Inside, I dreamed of constellations—
\nthose feeding creatures outlined by stars,
\ntheir skeletons a darkness between jewels,
\nheroes that exist only where they are not.<\/p>\n

Thus freedom always came nibbling my thought,<\/em>
\njust as—often, in light, on the open hills—<\/em>
\nyou can pass an antelope and not know<\/em>
\nand look back, and then—even before you see—<\/em>
\nthere is something wrong about the grass.<\/em>
\nAnd then you see.<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s the way everything in the world is waiting.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now—these few more words, and then I’m<\/em>
\ngone: Tell everyone just to remember<\/em>
\ntheir names, and remind others, later, when we<\/em>
\nfind each other. Tell the little ones<\/em>
\nto cry and then go to sleep, curled up<\/em>
\nwhere they can. And if any of us get lost,<\/em>
\nif any of us cannot come all the way—<\/em>
\nremember: there will come a time when<\/em>
\nall we have said and all we have hoped<\/em>
\nwill be all right.<\/em><\/p>\n

There will be that form in the grass.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(William Stafford [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

A path is something that can be followed, it takes you somewhere “Linear.” What would a path stand against? “No path.” Off the path, off the trail. So what’s off<\/em> the path? In a sense everything else<\/em> is off the path. The relentless complexity of the world is off to the side of the trail. For hunters and herders trails weren’t always so useful. For a forager, the path is not<\/em> where you walk for long. Wild herbs, camas bulbs, quail, dye plants, are away from the path. The whole range of items that fulfill our needs is out there. We must wander through it to learn and memorize the field — rolling, crinkled, eroded, gullied, ridged (wrinkled like the brain) — holding the map in mind… For the forager, the beaten path shows nothing new, and one may come home empty-handed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Gary Snyder [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Ex Libris<\/strong><\/p>\n

By the stream, where the ground is soft
\nand gives, under the slightest pressure — even
\nthe fly would leave its footprint here
\nand the paw of the shrew the crescent
\nof its claws like the strokes of a chisel
\nin clay; where the lightest chill, lighter
\nthan the least rumor of winter, sets the reeds
\nto a kind of speaking, and a single drop of rain
\nleaves a crater to catch the first silver
\nglint of sun when the clouds slide away
\nfrom each other like two tired lovers,
\nand the light returns, pale, though brightened
\nby the last chapter of late autumn:
\ncopper, rusted oak, gold aspen, and the red
\npages of maple, the wind leafing through to the end
\nthe annals of beech, the slim volumes
\nof birch, the elegant script of the ferns…<\/p>\n

for the birds, it is all
\nnotations for a coda, for the otter
\nan invitation to the river,
\nand for the deer — a dream
\nin which to disappear, light-footed
\non the still open book of earth,
\nadding the marks of their passage,
\nadding it all in, waiting only
\nfor the first thick flurry of snowflakes
\nfor cover, soft cover that carries
\nno title, no name.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Eleanor Wilner [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

#6:<\/strong> People who say they look ahead to life’s journey suffer a common confusion. The journey lies somewhere out there, beyond our control, and barely deserves consideration. We can control only our individual footsteps — watching neurotically if nervous, dancing if feeling more sprightly, or just plodding along. Always the footsteps behind us, and not the journey as a whole, are what we remember — and count on having available, for good.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(JES, Maxims for Nostalgists<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: Screen capture from Google Street View, which now lets you “walk around” Galapagos with the giant tortoises. For more information, see the Google Maps LatLong blog.] From whiskey river: And Now it’s October the golden hour of the clock of the year. Everything that can run to fruit has already done so: round apples, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38,247,1393,19,5,251,4159],"tags":[1115,1345,2738,3285,3394,4189,4190],"class_list":{"0":"post-17326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-backwards","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-internet","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"category-essays","13":"tag-google-gadgets","14":"tag-william-stafford","15":"tag-gary-snyder","16":"tag-maxims-for-nostalgists","17":"tag-barbara-crooker","18":"tag-galapagos-islands","19":"tag-eleanor-wilner","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4vs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17326"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17332,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17326\/revisions\/17332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}