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.

What Abides

No doubt many a smiling valley with its stretching

cornfields occupies exactly such a “horrid chasm,”

from which the waters have receded — Thoreau

Shallow water out back, once

a finger of marsh — that’s what I thought —

twenty years ago dyked off

from open water to create this pond.

A culvert bears tidal flow & captures fish,

inside they’re safe to grow. A relative term,

safe — autumn brings cormorants flanked

by egrets dipping, herons stabbing, pelicans

that dive. Still, the water holds bass

grown monsters on fingerling fare,

mornings they rise up, crash down

like boulders hurled by gods. One day

a neighbor tells me a different tale, not

marsh but a field of tomatoes once grew

where water makes this pond & houses

surround it. A few staked tomatoes thrive

every hot summer. Post-Hugo,

citizens claiming to be wise (or town

planners) chose to gouge out the earth

to replenish Folly, the ravaged barrier island

a worthier, no, a more profitable setting

than farmed field, & so our land

is reconfigured time & again, not

for good by birds or fish or storm or tide.

Instead, for money & power these flaws abide.

Tomato Pond

Though night’s over, a yellow street light

shines through wax myrtle. Sky is gray cotton.

Six ibis fly over, pond water alive.

Rumble of a passing car, heater vents.

More ibis, dozens, one circles back

it must have forgotten something —

where it was going perhaps. The slack

of low tide, the lunar flow stills.

This pond grew tomatoes

before Hurricane Hugo —

the soil went to fill Folly Island’s

greater loss. A culvert pulls in fish

with every coming tide, harvest

for water birds instead of hired hands.

Walden [excerpt]

Henry David Thoreau:

For hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman; tricks which they will have less need to practice in Louisiana bayous. When compelled to rise they would sometimes circle round and round and over the pond at a considerable height, from which they could easily see to other ponds and the river, like black motes in the sky; and, when I thought they had gone off thither long since, they would settle down by a slanting flight of a quarter of a mile on to a distant part which was left free; but what beside safety they got by sailing in the middle of Walden I do not know, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.

Thoreau's Neighbors

a moon’s mouth curves

to swallow a bright planet

a raptor’s (& an owl's) face curves

to capture sound

a locust chewing a leaf

this is the end

almost, of my 72nd year

what use this lingering?

beginning yet another garden

tearing out, snugging in

the cat’s ears swivel with listening

heron grates from its nest

ten days since solstice passed

days are eleven minutes longer

it would be dark

were human lights not blazing

back when dark was safe

Thoreau's neighbors

were not surprised to find him

out walking before the sun

& after midnight, all he owned

were his eyes, his ears, his nose

from the "Solitude" chapter of Walden
by Henry David Thoreau:

What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.