A recent draft. I'm off to enjoy today's high of 22. Yesterday, we were in the 30s with lovely wind gusts also in the thirties. The first rule of not-freezing-yourself-to-death club is not freezing yourself to death. So enjoy this recent draft about epistemology.
The Occult
I feel my whole mountain body,
one family narrative.
My leg, my hands reach
for the sharp sunlight, the hills,
the creek rhythm.
I was young, wanted to work the hard bones.
My wife did not ask for piedmont cows,
hay and a thin creek line of sycamores.
What do I know of root?
I wasn’t much more than a boy when I moved.
Began. The world
barren without knowledge.
Like a root, the moving practice,
the sinking mind. Old men say
learn to turn, punch, kick.
I will grow back as a stronger vine.
We pushed off.
Atlanta began it all again.
Alone that time, root split.
In the mountains I found form
and I found bones.
This version seems to be closer to the essence fo the poem.
Posted by: Mathias Svalina | December 07, 2006 at 12:50 PM