Virginia comes over the country

First,

I'm half way up Green Mountain when I see her leaning off her hip,

drinking from an old mug some water she collected of the rock.

Virginia, what a surprise, what is she doing here?

Virginia, I say, What a surprise. What are you doing here?

She doesn't answer because she's got her head facing West and

I'm speaking up from the East.

But I reckon it has something to do with the different between

hills and mighty elevation .

Then,

I'm driving like I will on Friday Mornings to work on the farm.

The land is regal with the hue of morning and

I'm just sucking and sucking and sucking it in through my eyes

as much as I can, when she's there, then, too,

Virginia's right hand disappeared into the matted fur of a buffalo's back.

Virginia! I shout, my car idling on the dirt path with the urban title of 59th street.

Virginia, I shout, what are you doing over there?

She answers this time, but with a clippness as to indicate I've got one

question, and I've asked it.

"Getting bits of whatnot off the Buffalo! Cleaning him up, really!"

I call out "Oh"

but realize she won't answer any others,

she's back to the animals, grass up to her hips.

I want to ask her how Jackie is,

how's the smell on the little road near Charlottesville.

What boxes have been brought in to the bookshop,

how many shark teeth have washed up on the Potomac.

But I'll just have to trust my intuitive answers:

twofeetwell, thus better, crisp, civilwar and popup books,

and too many to count, too many to ever fully collect.

It's nice to know, now, that the states visit one another sometimes on the weekend.

Next time Colorado goes calling, I'll ask if I, too, can go.

animal body

The hairs on my body form circles.

Light curls make shapes, ovals, opals.

I find hours to touch them gingerly,

above from the reflection of a pot,

or while standing on an elevator,

I look up, then touch the side of my

ear, where hair forms, returns, pets

and pats itself, like that on my upper

arm, see here now, my cheek, the down.

I’m comforted by my animal being,

who asks for no more ambition than

the breath and a good stretch occasionally.

I’m thrilled with the way it moves, not

through time, not out and long and firm,

but rather into itself, like sleep,

like how I find my form, at dawn.

evening, 1940

words from mister francis ponge:

What is it made of, this pleasure?- Principally of this: the pine woods is a piece of nature, made of trees all of a clearly defined species; a well delimited piece, generally quite deserted, where one finds shelter from the sun, from wind, from visibility; but no absolute shelter, not one completely isolated. No! It is a relative shelter. Not a sneaky shelter, nor a measly one, but a noble shelter.

It's a place too...where development is gradual, natural, without coppicing, without man-high branches, where sprawling out simply occurs, without slackness, but quite comfortably.

Each pine wood is like a natural sanatorium, as well as a music hall...a chamber, a vast cathedral of meditation (a cathedral without pulpit, fortunately) open to all the winds, but through so many doors that it's as if they were closed. For they hesitate there.

...

No laughter, but what salubrious comfort, what a temperateness of elements, what a soberly scented hall of music, soberly adorned, well made for serious walks and meditation.

-francis ponge-