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Jan. 30th, 2011 06:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupagreenwolfDid a little nature writing last weekend when I was up at Camano Island...
Camano Island, 1/22/2011
Copyright Lupa, 2011
Attention! Attention!
We are informing you that you have been wearing your big girl shoes for a very long time, strapping them on with lacings of responsibility and slowly wearing down the soles of the years of your life. And while you are concerning yourself with bills and how to pay those bills, with decisions and disappointments, with the increasing creak of joints and shoulders hard as rock with tension, we are informing you that you are required to dose yourself with
Madronas gripping with roots like red raw muscle
Tiny stony barnacles shut hard against low tide
The high-pitched couplet of white-capped eagles
Many-rayed starfish returned to the waves
Pay close attention, now. We see your eyes strain against the pixellated screens of multiple machines, and your ears must recover from the assault of headphones and traffic and neighbors and laundry and listening for the pad of footsteps a few paces on the sidewalk behind, friend or foe? We see, too, your hands that arch for hours over keyboards and take care with needles and thread, and feet that walk miles to work or to shop and run on the treadmill to keep ill health at bay. And your lungs that desperately cough away the poisons of the neighbors' smoking and the exhaust of the highway and must still expel the air needed to speak what it is that you need the most. We think it is only right that you give them
Broad expanses of water stitched by diving loons
Wave-smoothed stones that ask your balance as they slide against each other
A curl of driftwood that fits so neatly in your hand it's like it was made for you
A cool draught of oxygen tinted with salt
Are you aware, now, that you mourn a childhood hemmed in by dryness and pavement, of furtive, stolen visits to tiny remnants of white oak woods and yearling cedars? Remember now, you, the final representative of a long line of explorers, the last holdout against television and the sorts of toys that don't even ask you to do anything but passively sit and watch. Recall how much room there was because no one else was out there, and how the idea of another being with you was so alien that it brought out ancient territorial instincts, and you longed to chase them away in their bright-colored coats and lack of appreciation for what you'd spent so long to learn. And now, those who would never even think to call you "predecessor" don't inherit
A spiral shell in the hand, carved into a pendant by the waves
The sadness of a seagull with a broken wing
Fleshy leaves of seaweed laid wetly on the stones
Sharp spikes of reed in the tide's overflow
But we all know--you, included--that you saw your descendants in spirit out by the water today, climbing over branches and edging out toward the deep, just a little, just enough to make it worth the risk. And you, in your big girl shoes and shoulders hardened against the world, knew just what they were doing, because you were doing it, too, scrambling up the cliff and gazing wide-eyed all around you like for the very first time all over again. We are here because you are here, because you never lost that openness to the world, because you held tenaciously even as your ever-widening understanding of "real life" constricted your world around your throat--but you never forgot the power of breathing. And here you are, remembering to take those life-thriving breaths that you learned so early on, breathing in
Wind
Water
Scents
Sounds
Sights
Through lungs
Through pores
Through eyes
Through ears
Through fingertips and toes and shoulders that relax just a little
And we are here--us, you, them--we are here, no matter the shoes, no matter the steps we took to get to this place. In the madronas and the stones, we are all here the same.
Camano Island, 1/22/2011
Copyright Lupa, 2011
Attention! Attention!
We are informing you that you have been wearing your big girl shoes for a very long time, strapping them on with lacings of responsibility and slowly wearing down the soles of the years of your life. And while you are concerning yourself with bills and how to pay those bills, with decisions and disappointments, with the increasing creak of joints and shoulders hard as rock with tension, we are informing you that you are required to dose yourself with
Madronas gripping with roots like red raw muscle
Tiny stony barnacles shut hard against low tide
The high-pitched couplet of white-capped eagles
Many-rayed starfish returned to the waves
Pay close attention, now. We see your eyes strain against the pixellated screens of multiple machines, and your ears must recover from the assault of headphones and traffic and neighbors and laundry and listening for the pad of footsteps a few paces on the sidewalk behind, friend or foe? We see, too, your hands that arch for hours over keyboards and take care with needles and thread, and feet that walk miles to work or to shop and run on the treadmill to keep ill health at bay. And your lungs that desperately cough away the poisons of the neighbors' smoking and the exhaust of the highway and must still expel the air needed to speak what it is that you need the most. We think it is only right that you give them
Broad expanses of water stitched by diving loons
Wave-smoothed stones that ask your balance as they slide against each other
A curl of driftwood that fits so neatly in your hand it's like it was made for you
A cool draught of oxygen tinted with salt
Are you aware, now, that you mourn a childhood hemmed in by dryness and pavement, of furtive, stolen visits to tiny remnants of white oak woods and yearling cedars? Remember now, you, the final representative of a long line of explorers, the last holdout against television and the sorts of toys that don't even ask you to do anything but passively sit and watch. Recall how much room there was because no one else was out there, and how the idea of another being with you was so alien that it brought out ancient territorial instincts, and you longed to chase them away in their bright-colored coats and lack of appreciation for what you'd spent so long to learn. And now, those who would never even think to call you "predecessor" don't inherit
A spiral shell in the hand, carved into a pendant by the waves
The sadness of a seagull with a broken wing
Fleshy leaves of seaweed laid wetly on the stones
Sharp spikes of reed in the tide's overflow
But we all know--you, included--that you saw your descendants in spirit out by the water today, climbing over branches and edging out toward the deep, just a little, just enough to make it worth the risk. And you, in your big girl shoes and shoulders hardened against the world, knew just what they were doing, because you were doing it, too, scrambling up the cliff and gazing wide-eyed all around you like for the very first time all over again. We are here because you are here, because you never lost that openness to the world, because you held tenaciously even as your ever-widening understanding of "real life" constricted your world around your throat--but you never forgot the power of breathing. And here you are, remembering to take those life-thriving breaths that you learned so early on, breathing in
Wind
Water
Scents
Sounds
Sights
Through lungs
Through pores
Through eyes
Through ears
Through fingertips and toes and shoulders that relax just a little
And we are here--us, you, them--we are here, no matter the shoes, no matter the steps we took to get to this place. In the madronas and the stones, we are all here the same.