in the shadow of the ice cream store closed now for years but preparing to return probably not as an ice cream store, but I don’t know seems like they just closed a few months ago but this is a different town, and a different time what becomes of who we were when we become who we are?
next spring there will be a short window of time during which the resurgence of this plant from its roots will make for good eats, a green spring salad and then, within a couple weeks, those same leaves will become poisonous just like the seeds of the purple berries it will bear later in the summer, berries that make great jelly – so long as you strain out the seeds… a good medicine for hard illness but not to be taken lightly – just a little bit to poke the immune system and get it charged up to fight off a severe flu or the like not many people know how to use it anymore know it well enough to have a relationship with it know it well enough to use it as medicine without injury what has happened to us? knowledge not only of this plant but of how to live in relationship with plants and their medicine used to be common knowledge – a knowledge commons – a weft thread that bound our individual threads together In community as a social fabric what remains in its absence?
mountains in the distance this is one cool alley this time of day I’m imagining the memories made in this place over time, over beers, over the repair of car engines but there’s nothing left here now to show for any of that just empty lots and weed trees sprouting from foundations those times are long gone, whoever they belonged to one by one the buildings are being renovated or at least that work has now begun soon enough there will be new memories made by new people even as old memories fade
it would be wrong to say it was rectified but the rectilinear need not be left unattended for very long before life itself by the very act of living buries the straight lines and right angles in organic curves and the stochastic pathways of phototropic decision making until the abstract aesthetic vacuum is filled with the stuff of life the movement of life, the colors of life, the detritus, the flow brought back into the circle of life, enfolding deadness in the process of life living, growing, gathering, sharing, spreading, dancing with the sun, rising and falling with the silver moon swaying with wind, singing as rain until the square find belonging in the culture of the round and the ragged edges soften the lines too straight to be real or true
its happened before first time nobody believed us then Charlie climbed up on the hedge he just wanted to get a better look or anyway thats what he said I don’t know what he saw but he just got this real sorta faraway look and he leaned over like he was tryna get a better look at somethin only he musta lost his balance cuz he just sorta tumbled into it mama says we gotta stay inside now evry time it comes back I wanna go out there and look for Charlie
unlike desperadoes and yet waiting for a train I found these two moments after their train arrived – I had come running having heard the whistle from a block away it is rare that I speak to people when I’m foraging today I spoke to three, and seriously considered others
I didn’t have a chance to converse with this couple and didn’t get the sense they would want to but they were kind enough to acquiesce when I asked if I could photograph them I would have asked where they were headed and whether or not they enjoyed riding on trains
this town – and its rail yard – keep drawing me back and I keep finding myself dreaming of next steps and imagining them moving in that direction whether that involves a new place to live or a departure point for a rail journey or a class at the local art school I don’t know – but I do know I am glad to be dreaming knowing I am awake
parked in an alley, far from the shore well aware I am out of my element REO here has wheels to roll on and only wants a tractor but traction does me no good it only exacerbates friction I need the smooth liquid for which I am made upon which I can float in which context I can glide until I am buoyed aloft again I will continue dreaming of home