undo us
Painting by Ferdinand Hodler, “Landschaft Mit Wiese Und Waldrand” c. 1890
I walked tonight on a simple dirt path hugging low against the hips of a hill. Dangling in brittle fallen trees like garlands, ivy, green and bright, wound it’s way amongst the branches. Like the left-behind holding the lifeless hand of the deceased. Life entwined with death like fingers.
Birds of a thousand songs whistled and hooted and cawed to no end. The foggy thicket of clouds beheld the setting sun, keeping its blinding warmth to itself tonight. Only a light glow of ruby shines through now. My nose mirroring in color. I feel color. The chill falls upon my skin even beneath the soft embrace of a sweater.
Church bells chime melodically. A generator hums. Cars race in the distance. Birds jingling like bells. I reach to the farthest sound in the field, to what end can I know… the potential evokes me. Geese honk like horns in the north, people laugh in the park. The chimes of time ring.
I turn to go, the chill is beginning to sing to my skin like the birds to my ears. Glancing back at the hill I just graced, the once green and glistening branches and grasses have taken on hues of the night.
The sky’s blue is giving way to distant lights as they puncture the veil one by one. Suns, like ours, some thousands of times larger even. And far, far away. And yet their light shines into the blanket overhead like the holes between the knitting when you tuck in for a midday nap, where it’s never truly dark.
A dog barks. My feet tap gently onto pavement as my car awaits. The world of man-made things still a curious mystery to me. A leaf skitters. My car welcomes me with a warm embrace.
I am humbled to be among the forces of nature. I laugh at myself that pitter pattering of my thumbs across this glowing screen, stitching the alphabet together like knitting warmth for us all, that this is how I too sing like birds and paint like suns. Like wood peckers smashing holes in bark and stars popping pins into the sky, perhaps my words are just to undo us, one bit more.
