To change ideas about what the land is for,
is to change ideas about what anything is for.
~ Aldo Leopold
But he who obeys Nature returns through
Form and Formless to the Living
And in the Living joins the unbegun Beginning.
The joining is Sameness. The sameness is Void.
The Void is infinite.
~ Chuang Tzu
The Land
My grandfather bought the land with no plan,
But ageless trees ere the Europeans
Created primeval forests and paths
That I, as child, explored enchanted
With forts, friends and atavistic instinct.
My uncle inherited, then clear cut
The forest leaving tortured ridges and fields
Laying it barren as a battlefield.
He then neglected it as did Nature
So that the aboriginal forest
Is now an impenetrable tangle
Of invasives. The land disowned itself.
He died without consciousness of his crime
And bequeathed it to me as he knew that
I had loved its once trees and majesty.
My life allowed it little thought for years
As I pursued professional rewards,
But personal tragedy crippled me
Leaving my psyche in such shambles that
I only now seek escape and solace.
Needing a refuge for reflection and
Recalling those joyous days of my youth,
I pray a return to the valley might
Restore a trace of equanimity.
I resolve to winter on the west ridge.
This ridge of 1,000 feet was once a
Massive mountain range higher than any.
Sharing our diminished states, I pursue
Consolation in deep and winter’d thought.
Do I mean to reconceive my quondam
As recluse? Due to my life’s ill-fortune
And past pride, my future is quandary
And I care not for else. An erst success
I am shadowed by my dark conclusion
Of a consumed life and resolve to alter
All aspects of my vain purposelessness.
To indulge this future unencumbered
By plan and find whatever repressed
Within, its freedom. I shall be released
Of plan, commitment and obligation.
In nothing and nights with music and pen,
I crave my own reconciliation
And resolution with what time permits.
In high school, my English teacher had us
Write our autobiography. Mine was
Replete with admirable accomplishment.
My subconscious shall rewrite it again
And it will be filled with empty pages.
What is my purpose and what towards this land?
This age’d retreat cultivates but myself;
I cared for family and tended others
But sorrow speaks now only in silence.
My words will be but, ‘What a nice, cool day.’1
For myself, I have no suitable plan….
The mountain moon will mirror my music.2
Surely, mocked by my family and village,
Past friends will shake their heads and analyze,
‘He should not shun in sorrow but engage.’
How fulsome is this from unwitting friends
Who know not the pain of catastrophe.
Last spring, I asked a local carpenter
To build a small hut halfway up the ridge
Where the coldest of the northwestern winds
Shall stay above me and yet I can see
The sun and the moon arise in the east.
In the morning I will write as the rays
Reach the farthest corner with warming light
And to write and play music as the moon
Progresses its reflective light from one
Of several valley ponds to another.
Each reflection shall tend to my temper
And enrich the resonance of my play.
Will I be able to lobotomize
My concern for career and my hut the
Chrysalis of an emerged imago?
May I drown reaching to embrace the moon.3
My books are of western philosophy
And wait on a shelf for discovery.
A propane stove on a square granite slab
Is on one side of the hut and a bed
On the other. Under the bed are drawers
For food, wine, clothes and outdoor equipment.
The front faces southeast with a glass door
And a window overlooking a porch.
The rear nestles back into a cliff face.
A solar panel on the roof connects
To a battery with a reading light.
To sever my city ties, I sold my
Co-op and told my partners of my plan.
I garage my car at a neighbor’s farm
And walk, in the early evening autumn
Darkness, across the valley to my hut.
The hut faces and radiates dawn’s light.
I arise, light the stove to make coffee
And then, upon my camp stool on the porch,
Surveil what is now my only domain.
In the raw light the land is blighted.
The field, my field, ramp and strewn with brambles
And barberry with the sharpest of thorns.
Forests of Ailanthus, the tree of hell,
Cover large portions with stink and poisons
And leach into the ponds and once clean streams.
A cedar, oak or pine which might emerge
Is ravaged by deer or swallowed by vine.
Before me, the entire sweep is mine,
No other house nor structure may be seen.
It is mine, but whatever does that mean?
From my west ridge, I look over a wide
Deep valley to a parallel ridge line.
A lateral moraine from glacier’d times
Connects the ridges to the north. The land
Suggests an upside-down drinking glass with
Its mouth to the south. Several sinuous
Streams vein the valley, beginning as clear
Chortling cascades, then slowing to become
Two ponds and wetlands abutting a lake.
There are two neighbors whom I’m aware of.
Over the east ridge are the lands of the
Schaghticokes and to the north, a farmer
Who maintains a large orchard and with whom
I garage my car in her large cow barn.
The sun is now higher and cuts the cold.
I refill my coffee cup for this is
One legacy which I choose not to lose.
The logging did not occur on the ridge
So I have surrounding me the flora
Of azaleas, holly and witch hazel.
Mid-ridge, willows follow small rivulets
Complementing the citrusy spicebush.
In the valley’s swamps, the European
Invasive, Purple Loosestrife, swarms and chokes
The native cattails as does Phragmites.
I struggle to envision the stands of
Oaks and pine that canopied this valley.
I try to place the fort and campsites which
Allowed me to be aboriginal youth.
How free; how unencumbered; how sovereign!
This was my necessary time to grow
That requisite early ontogeny.
My hope is that this valley will again
Be that vessel to reconceive me.
That vision is replaced by ravaging
Logging trucks and bulldozers which destroyed
My fort and the primal ecosystem.
All that was left were the despoils of
A culture of arrogance and disdain.
So, here, my broken land lies before me.
We two cohabiting an instance of
Creation now suspended of purpose.
1. Xin Qiji (1140-1207)
2. Wang Wei (701-761)
3. In 762, Li Po drowned after falling into a lake trying to embrace the reflection of the moon.
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