Black Mountain / Thrift Cove hike

2 hours 56 minutes 5.65 miles

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Cat Gap Loop hike

2 hours 32 minutes, 4.64 miles

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Walden

At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In imagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I knew their price. I walked over each farmer’s premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in my mind; even put a higher price on it, — took every thing but a deed of it, — took his word for his deed, for I dearly love to talk, — cultivated it, and him too to some extent, I trust, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it on. . . . there I might live . . . and there I did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I could let the years run off, buffet the winter through, and see the spring come in. . . . and then I let it lie, fallow perchance, for a man [sic] is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

North Slope hike

 2 hours 17 minutes, 4 miles

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High Falls

a natural wonder — water, falling — 

I reach by a wide clean gray gravel road

the park calls a trail, I call it a highway

a motorized wheelchair could climb

the greater the wonder the more public the show

much as I love falling water — boiling froth

slick rock & glassy spills, greenish flat rock

under four feet deep flow — I don’t want

to be here in this carved-out space

nature no longer wild, nature tidy as

a downtown street & just as well attended

once it would have been space for falling

from life too much ache to endure

once it would have been a spot

where my body would never be found

 

Daniel Ridge hike

3 hours, 5.3 miles

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Moore Cove Falls & Coontree Loop hikes

Moore Cove Falls trail leads to Moore Falls, 45 minutes, 1.4 miles round trip

Coontree Loop trail goes up & up & up & down & down & down, 2 hours 10 minutes, 3.8 mile, I walked clockwise 

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Art Loeb hike

2 hours, 4 miles

from the parking lot the Art Loeb trail runs along the east, then the west side of Davidson River for .75 mile, then hooks a right across another bridge & heads up a pretty steep hill

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Sycamore Cove hike

2 hours, 3.5 miles

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Pink Beds Loop hike

3 hours, 5.3 miles, hiked with Ed Seel

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Rabbit

comes back . what comes back to me is the rabbit

streaking . no . rocketing from front yard to back

rabbit run . a rabbit running for its life . rabbit life

fear here . joy there . full measure . full grown

white tuft aft . four legs outstretched at every bound

not height but length of bound what matters . woods

to lawn to norther woods . another chase won

another day gained . shelter won . of day . of night

A River in Georgia

I set out to walk to the river crossing, an activity akin to running a finger over a scab & wanting to peel it to see whether the wound underneath has healed. The black lab races back & forth across the driveway. Beyond the dog I see a white pickup attached to a trailer loaded with large equipment. A man with a gray beard & ponytail sets down side-by-side metal ramps. On the trailer sit two large black motorcycles, a Harley & a BMW Beretta, both with fat rear tires, the Beretta’s rear fender short & high. The man may have heard my “Hey, nice bikes,” but he doesn’t respond. Tall, lean, dungareed, at least sixty, maybe a decade more. Bob walks down from the house with his pug Fancy, a double handful of curiosity. Bob has the face of a mild-mannered dealer, man of a thousand schemes, including a red barn he plans to turn into a fish camp, home to a dozen bicycles, stacks of building material, a hundred-year-old long-legged gas stove, rolls of insulation visible through an upstairs window. Lashed to a shed rail a traffic light shines green. Stolen street signs stand or lie about — caution watch for children, road closed ahead. Together Bob & the man he calls Vic unlash & unload the motorcycles, a gift from Bob’s wife’s ex-husband to his sons because the ex-husband is returning to Russia after thirty years in the US. “To be with family,” he claims. The Harley barely runs & nearly bottoms out in the mud next to the driveway. Vic drives the BMW down the driveway a stretch before turning back & parking it next to the Harley on a sheet of T1-11 inside the carport attached to the barn. To make room for the bikes Bob & I shift onto the lawn sinks, lumber, deck chairs, & a large beatup desk with two holes as if for umbrellas. Boxes & totes we push into a framed room plumbed with bathroom fixtures plus a hot water heater but without walls. Bob slides open the barn door to reveal an interior filled with old furniture. “This all has to go,” he says. “Then I’ll put down bunks, he points to a plywood counter, “kitchen here,” points again, “bathroom door. “Yeah, I’ll help you,” Vic says. While they load a 1970s turquoise VW Beetle onto the trailer, I continue down to the river crossing, a concrete slab under two to four inches of rushing water. Water I’d driven through to get here, water I’d drive through to get out. Walking back I look more closely at the VW. “That’s cherry,” I say. Bob looks puzzled even when I repeat it. Vic winces after reaching with a strap under the car to lash it down. “My back,” he says, bending forward, sideways, then back, “kinda worn out.”