“From where I lie on my side, I can see the shadowy underbelly of a boxwood shrub, its damp, brittle branches touching a mulch of its own making. A forest, really, from down here, whereas up top, the multiples of the one, form a hedgerow, all leafing out in unison, serving a single aim. Marching in place, uninterested in any direction but up, side by side, arms locked, just ... growing together. I wish we could. But somehow humans, burdened by the baggage of individuation, hauling behind them flags & banners, seem destined to disagree. Even among the rank and file of their very own kind. Your best friend might sleep with your wife, admit it. Anyway, that’s been my world. Now from the comfort of a marble patio, body splayed beneath a bucolic, peak foliage sky, I examine the world’s tilt with my well-worn level, noting how far the stones have slumped, and slid, and lost their ability to provide sure footing. From here, I’ll jump to a fighter’s stance, & pull up what’s been long left alone, carefully handling it without scraping any others, placing it to one side. Truth is, when you get hired by a fellow do-it-your-self-er, you know the stories behind how things that got done, will be rich. In this case, the patio wouldn’t be here for me to work on, were it not for Middlebury College having dismantled its library at some point, and piled the stones by the side of the road. What industrious, genius friends I have, what incredible recycling has gone before me. She’d carted them off, with the foreman’s permission, and worked them into her wonderful garden. Now we sit, so many years later, for its late enough in the day for quitting, in the dimming autumn chill. Our view takes in the whole of the Breadloaf range, and a sea of deciduous turmoil we may never recover from, it’s so intense, and beautifully sad. I’ve brought a bottle of something, though I rarely pay attention to what it is, beyond a word or two, today’s being “Organic”. Thank you, Argentina. You may still have organic standards that mean what they say. Our lives have been sad, too. This kind of laughing between friends who have seen this much tragedy, is deep and majestic. Like the Cliffs of Mohr, or some classical music piece where the strings play long, long, languorously slow melodies that put you into a euphoric place somewhere above your body. Nothing here to wallow in, that’s so “yesterday”. Just time to fill now, with the few things of value that still resonate and make us feel whole, and/or holy. It’s not a big deal, really. To be thinking about what to commission someone to carve into a stone, that might be placed in your yard. No, not a gravestone, not yet. But a physical summoning, to what we witness as “self evident” when we are alone enough or stranded enough, to call out for top level assistance. If I could go off script for just a minute, my business card would read: “On Earth, As It Is In Heaven”. Another way of saying I’m able to plant your tree, or make your song sound as good as it can, to reach your tribe, or your fellow shrubbery, not only in this world, but the next as well.”
