When I first came out to the country
-- I knew nothing. I watched
as people planted, harvested, picked
-- the berries, explained
the weather, tended the ducks and horses.
When I first came out to the country
-- my mind emptied and I
liked it that way. My mind was like a sky
-- without clouds, a summer sky
with several birds flapping across a field
-- on the eastern horizon.
I liked the slowness of things. The empty
-- town, the lake stillness,
the man I met who seemed contented, who
-- sat and talked in the dusk
about why he had chosen this long ago.
I did better dreaming then. the colors
-- were clear. I found something
important in myself: capacity for renewal.
-- And at night, the sky so intense.
Clear incredible stars! Almost another earth.
But now I see there are judgments here.
-- This way of planting or that.
The arguments about fertilizers and organics;
-- problems of time, figuring how
to allocate what we have. So many matters
-- to fasten on and dissect.
That's the way it is with revelations,
-- If you live it out, you start
thinking, examining. The mind cries out
-- for materials to play with.
Right now, in fact, I'm excited about
-- several new vines and waiting
for the blackberry authorities to arrive.
.
by Lou Lipsitz
from Seeking the Hook
Signal Books 1997
1
