And so, it is to be a selection of six – white, green, orange, red, yellow with blue, blue with yellow…ribbons…a string to a hand…to remain grounded for hope – to let go for higher aspirations. And yet we have matchsticks and petrol cans. Have you got some time for me…that it could come to this?
People helping people, filling sandbags, finding comforts, waiting, hope, worry, searching amidst the loss, new friends, the military is here (or has returned). Stop the water…move the people…save the livestock….save the sturgeon, evacuate, evacuate…find higher ground as sirens wail their haunting scream. In the worst of times the best of us found.
Sometimes you walk to write…and bring a camera too…just in case those images of fall might work for this night. And so I wander about the Thanksgiving homes…a tune within my head. I sense the streetscapes and homes quieter than normal…still…pandemic and all…cars are in front of homes…people at the table. The turkey and all…good chatter. In seeking the colour in the leaves I happen to see one family at the table…its good to see as I wander on past the crescent moon.
My ears, unable to distinguish the poet’s voice from the murmurings of mechanical and inflectional clamourings, requires technology to capture the refrain, while sparrows bounce between crumbles. I walk towards the jukebox as verse and chorus rise to my recognitio…
These are the steps we take on our obligations and desires, or on our footloose whimsical or conscious tessellated paths of interest and exploration. With each footfall new existence…the chance to see.
Here amongst someone’s book…someone’s time amongst the finery of life. Perhaps times shared with another in the meadow, small conversation at hand, the kindness of hopeful love, together with the gentle calm of each other.
When the wind blows…I can see them all again…friends through the years.
I come to realize that my usual treasury of resources is not delivering…film, sound and soundtrack, the words of others…all require my own journeys to find connection, similar and dissimilar…joys of discovery. These legs need to journey…finding the places and things that bring all together…
In the Irish Peace Park a traditional Irish tower stands. It marks the place where soldiers of the 36th Ulster and 16th Irish Divisions served together.
And they journeyed….In the wilderness….towards the sunrising. Beneath the sky, the moon – the sun – this ground, this coast, valley, or ridge. Along the long, long trail that is our path through Gully Ravine – or our crest at Lone Pine. I return this day to wanderings across places of conflict.