Edward Nixon’s Blog

past the parking lot and the helpful signs
there is tangle and breaking apart
river surging thru all those jazz notes
some nicely dressed people noticing

their blacktop manners succumbing to bush
needing a field guide to say the names
the tree, gnarled and wide, easy with the sky
it’s long-ago siblings lost to mast and beam

a hiker stops as if to count into the bark
trace back lost centuries of working
cutting, sweat making the valley human
mistakes were made, this one missed

the path knows our feet too well
red, magenta, purple, punch up from mud
working around our cleat-marks
our kind invasions of this valley

the brain needs a forest
but gets the schematic tapestry of woodlot
and dammed-up river run
the under-spiced taste of semi-wild
something they plan in the ministry
a couple of rumpled suits and a murder of maps
you have the brochure, its sensitive typesetting

but the hungry tissue seeks it’s wrong turn
to make the path from steps not imagined
to breath purple flower, think sumac
join the nurse log’s green-shoot seminar
witness thumbnail empires rising
fueled by leaf mulch and wood-rot
cedar tang on the tongue commands
this brain needs to get lost!