October 16, 2024
Over on PALIMPSEST (go to the PNEWS tab and drop down), where I posted my first three blog entries before realizing I would need to learn to use the WIX blogging app, or be screwed, I talked about how I'd like to try some blog posts in the style of an improvisational free verse project, called "So, Life" which I experimented with a good while back. Most of those pieces date from around 2007, I believe; I would guess that the one below does also. I said there that I'd post one or a few more from the series, to prime the pump. I chose this one because of the cover image I thought I could try with it. I've been experimenting with a wild tree tops composite—so that aspect of this post, at least, is new today. I'm still struggling with getting my cover images to post, so it may be a while before I manage to make it viewable.
So Life, I was figuring out how long it’s been
since last I climbed a tree—
because I used to love climbing trees—
and then I remembered: not that long, actually—
because when Eddie was a kitten he skittered so high up one and got
stuck so long we had to borrow a longer ladder to retrieve him;
and before Eddie, when Sofy was a kitten, several times I had to
monkey up the dogwood after him;
so it’s proven quite a useful skill, tree-climbing;
but useful’s not the same as the joy it was,
when I myself was a pup.
And I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m so
clouted with wistfulness right now, and by this itch to tree-climb—
because I already had my mid-life crisis, twenty years ago,
when I shed 20 lbs, and frequented clubs till 1 a.m. on school nights,
and on the evening after graduation,
jogged back to the campus where I teach, for a teachers under forty party,
and being just under the wire of that, escaped from it, mid-boogie,
to the far end of the sports pitch, to with my two spread hands
seize hold of a trunk and low limb by the theatre building,
to haul myself so high I could see through the second floor dance studio windows;
to perch there in solitary stillness, just me and the moon in June,
until my breathing quieted and I came down…
Then walked the four miles home as slowly as if it
might be for the last time—of something—I couldn’t say what.
Okay, sure, all right, as if with mingled excitement and regret I might
be about to chuck it all, for some great, uncertain, other yadda yadda life.
But I wasn’t, and I didn’t, and soon, much faster than the first time
I was that crazy kid, I was over it and grown again.
And except usefully (for which thank you, Eddie, Sofy)
I haven’t climbed a tree since. Although sometimes—
this afternoon, for example—
the ache still visits me.
To take in the clasp of my bare palms the bark,
and feel the sag of branches under me, as I push away from the world;
to reach a high, sure V, and straddle it, among a sway of leaves;
to see to the horizon, 360° of possibility, and breathe,
for the space of a longing,
its more innocent air.
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