The full bright green is already here, and the restlessness of early spring is almost replaced by heavy humid light. While outside has contented itself with a young maturity, in here it is still barren and unsettled, with slight bursting movements in all the wrong directions threatening to skip summer and just freeze over again.
Clearly the only thing to do is leave.
See that? That's me and Juliet. We're about to adventure after the quite talk we've just had.
Jump into swimming holes.
Navigate the subway.
Marvel at steel and glass.
Well, there aren't swimming holes, but there should be.
And now, a river and a North Carolina that were a respite from idiocies here are now just the same confusion and cold separation. Can I please just exorcise Self from Myself?
Equal parts dirt and misery and companionship and triumph.
The despair of asthmatic exhaustion at the bottom of a 1000 ft mountain, short steep trudging steps, steady climb and an invaluable walking stick, the only thing preventing a slide. Then a clear ridge, Appalachians dropping off either side in the clean high altitude. Don't mind the eye-level vultures, you've already climbed higher than that.
And at the top in the midnight there are coyotes and friendly fires across the valley, while Orion made way for Cassiopeia and the Pleiades.
Jellypants is a steadyslow walker and a lovely talker, a perfect pace for Turtle, and the grandfathers with their ancestral Dutch moustaches offer wise encouragement. But mostly the Appalachians, with their mountain goat trails that push your feet up an otherwise insurmountable terrain, and after some crisp sunny quiet at the top tumble you back down bruised and joyously exhausted. So that's all. The mountain top is joy.
I want to be this color all over, skin darkened and hair goldened by the sun until everything is tawny.
Instead, it's cherry tomatoes for a late dinner and an essay on the psychological horror that Hawthorne manages to elicit. Self-destructive tendencies and spiritual doubt are altogether too much for this hour, but I can already feel the restless warm blue outside pushing cold thoughts off and away and over with. Bare feet on a windowsill now.
The King asked
The Queen, and
The Queen asked
The Dairymaid:
"Could we have some butter for
The Royal slice of bread?"
The Queen asked the Dairymaid,
The Dairymaid
Said, "Certainly,
I'll go and tell the cow
Now
Before she goes to bed."
The Dairymaid
She curtsied,
And went and told
The Alderney:
"Don't forget the butter for
The Royal slice of bread."
The Alderney
Said sleepily:
"You'd better tell
His Majesty
That many people nowadays
Like marmalade
Instead."
The Dairymaid
Said, "Fancy!"
And went to
Her Majesty.
She curtsied to the Queen, and
She turned a little red:
"Excuse me,
Your Majesty,
For taking of
The liberty,
But marmalade is tasty, if
It's very
Thickly
Spread."
The Queen said
"Oh!:
And went to
His Majesty:
"Talking of the butter for
The royal slice of bread,
Many people
Think that
Marmalade
Is nicer.
Would you like to try a little
Marmalade
Instead?"
The King said,
"Bother!"
And then he said,
"Oh, deary me!"
The King sobbed, "Oh, deary me!"
And went back to bed.
"Nobody,"
He whimpered,
"Could call me
A fussy man;
I only want
A little bit
Of butter for
My bread!"
The Queen said,
"There, there!"
And went to
The Dairymaid.
The Dairymaid
Said, "There, there!"
And went to the shed.
The cow said,
"There, there!
I didn't really
Mean it;
Here's milk for his porringer,
And butter for his bread."
The Queen took
The butter
And brought it to
His Majesty;
The King said,
"Butter, eh?"
And bounced out of bed.
"Nobody," he said,
As he kissed her
Tenderly,
"Nobody," he said,
As he slid down the banisters,
"Nobody,
My darling,
Could call me
A fussy man -
BUT
I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!"
Smoked turkey and cheese on a hot roll with bell pepper, button shrooms, pickles, and lettuce, and a cool glass of water on an ancient sunny porch. Sun on our hair, sun in our belly. And soon we will be as gold as lions.
