“Walking ain’t bad. You have to check things along the trail. Are the marsh marigolds up? Has the muddy, frost-heaved way collapsed? What kind of traction? Is the melt water reached its ebb? There hasn’t been anyone out here, not really. I’ll keep going step by step, drop into the hollow to where the stream nearly takes out the road. I don’t want to slip. I don’t want to fall. I just want to become a part of the woods, embraced and validated. You can feel the temperature drop as the sound of tumbling water beats louder onto silence. We integrate with the peace of wild things by slowing down. Grabbing saplings, falling twice through the crusts of drifted snow. A soft bed, an accepting opinion. You can think what you want, between ancient stone walls. But that old way of being brave, and standing up for friends, is moot. This new world order runs on fear, baby, fear. Don’t walk on a bad knee, don’t venture past your mailbox. What goes on beyond the plow turn-around is reserved for a select few. Not exactly a club, but you’ll need to think for yourself to stake your claim here. Think with your brain, love as if your survival depended on it. For when push comes to shove, who do you trust? Who loves with an urgency and compulsion that plows under the hype? Oh Crocus, oh Scilla. How I love what you say to a world under lockdown.”
