nesting

today it has rained steadily,

steadily enough to keep me inside, that is.

i am tired

and the sky is heavy

and i have no sticks to show today.

portrait of myself as a collection of dutch office supplies

2,554 steps.

myself in relation to kolderveen.

meneer ooievaar

goedemorgen, meneer ooievaar.

i say to the wind while squinting through glass

that brings me up next to him, my good sir,

mr. stork.

he is sitting quietly this morning

i imagine he is thinking of his mate,

mevrouw ooievaar, mrs. stork,

to come back from her morning parades

to greet him, 

& they'll throw back their heads

and laugh with their beaks

and click-clack clattering laugh,

and all will be well

and i ride on,

with my red-riding helmet

in the early dawn.

i wonder how many of my steps

does it take to get from one end

of kolderveen to another?

today it took two-million

slow steady straining steps

to get from washington

to now.

but i am here,

and i have never heard such birds

or seen such green

or smelled such smells

like that of here

and that of now.

today i am tired,

but tomorrow,

everything will be new again

and from dream to waking dream

i will begin.

on my way

i am climbing

from one mechanical bird

to another.

here, 

in the middle of this continent

the world is humming buzzing bursting

and i am flapping further flight,

taking off

from every here

to newer nows,

sleeping with the ocean.

de sneeuw is nu hier

we had celebrated the springtime and looked to the sun

only a few days before this,

before today, when the world turned white again.

the world is white

and i am wet with whiteness.

and i am hoping to awaken

in the morning

feeling green

and thoughtful

instead of still

and white.

i think i will spend tomorrow

searching for the lapwing egg,

searching for something i can trade

with Meneer Winter,

an exchange for something warmer.

lapwing. spring.

spring. lapwing.

het Glujende peerd

a thunderstorm today.

wide & weighted clouds

that let out a terrible yawn

and a blink

before emptying their souls on the street

and galloping on.

the sky is low & grey of late.

i am thinking of ways to climb it.

i dreamt of kolderveen last night.

i don't know what was real

(i never know what is real these days)

i only know that i spent the dream-there

searching for something.

i remember watching carefully

a bird that was balanced on a branch

so very delicately.

i remember how the branch bent and bounced

under the bird-weight

and how everything

had just been rained on.

things were mostly damp

and i remember that my shoes got soggy

from a puddle

that i hadn't noticed

until i was within it.

beginnings {begin}

i am in-between things.

or me i'm in-between?

i've settled, a bit,

before the take-off,

the take-up,

the take-down,

that will occur in a matter of weeks:

one month and may.

 

i am in-between things,

caught after the snow, before the sun

after the sun, but before the green,

somewhere between sadness & survival

is life's sweet slight-of-hand.

i am during during during

in-during,

enduring.

i am in-between things.

i am half here,

and half there,

and both halves sit in the sky above them,

watching the wheres and whens

that assemble themselves into

one self

with many

in-between it.