Bettina Woolard's Blog (5)

We walk in the forest,

Seth & I,

& it's the time of year

when everything's brown:

the bark of the ponderosas,

the carpet of needle & cone,

the dead grass,

certain boulders, the earth itself;

even our dog is brown

& if she didn't move about

she couldn't be distinguished

from her surroundings.

~

I…

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People have walked their dogs here,

there are footprints in the snow

made by human feet, or rather

by the boots or shoes they wear,

and parallel to them,

rows of pawmarks, fore and hind,

left and right,

each dent followed by a slight drag;

some are dainty, as from a matron's yorkie,

others grand, a shepherd's,

rottweiler's, or lab's.

~

Off at an angle, zigzag,

here,…

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New moon, dark moon,

will my plants

blossom & bloom

if planted in mid-June?

Slim chance

(good cowboy name),

all the same,

give it a try,

they'll live or they'll die.

~

First…

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Smashed glass, plastic bottles near decomposed,

aluminum cans bearing the words Pabst Blue Ribbon,

Coca-cola, Sprite, Mountain Dew,

Styrofoam scraps, once burger-holding boxes,

shreds of black bags, clinging to branches like ravens,

graffiti in bulbous script on rock walls...

some day these will be our potshards

and our petroglyphs,

our mementoes to be found by archeologists,

our culture's messages to the future:

Hello!…

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Picking up sticks:

some too rough,

too long, not long enough,

too stout, or heavy, crooked;

some with cracks

to pinch the fingers' skin.

in all this forest

there must be one

that's useful, like a ski pole,

a broom, a rod, a javelin, or staff.



Dry as ancient chicken bones,

twisted, signed by beetles

in cryptic runic alphabet,

knobbed and gnarly

as an old man's warted face.



Somewhere in this wood

there… Continue