Friday, January 13, 2012

Walking the Fence Line, Feeling Alive and Mortal




Blue and I walk along this fence once and sometimes twice a day. This morning we made tracks in the light snow; a week or two ago there was no snow. Same steep hill. Same barbed-wire fence. Shifting contexts.


There are a couple of deer paths that intersect the fence, and the deer sometimes leave hair behind (see the snow crystals gathered around the hair in the third photo here)—like their tracks, signs of their passing (Blue can, of course, scent other potent signs of their having been here).


At one point on our faint trail I have to duck low under an overhanging maple branch. This morning as I was about to duck down, I noticed a long grey hair caught on the bare branch.


It was mine, a sign of my having passed here. A sign of time past, of time having passed, of always impending mortality. Made me feel alive.
































3 comments:

* said...

feeling alive is good. so, the deer and you:


Stille Winterstraße

Es heben sich vernebelt braun
Die Berge aus dem klaren Weiß,
Und aus dem Weiß ragt braun ein Zaun,
Steht eine Stange wie ein Steiß.

Ein Rabe fliegt, so schwarz und scharf,
Wie ihn kein Maler malen darf,
Wenn er's nicht etwas kann.
Ich stapfe einsam durch den Schnee.
Vielleicht steht links im Busch ein Reh
Und denkt: Dort geht ein Mann.

Ringelnatz

Scott Abbott said...

stehen = Menschsein / Rehsein / Stangesein / lebendig

the poem reminds me of Frost's "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening"

* said...

i'll have to look that frost one up. pity there wasn't blue or a dog in the ringelnatz one...