It’s April now, but the birds are hiding. The sun slips in and out through the small tears of the clouds. It rained last night. The cemetery is wet, it has been for months. I usually stay on the paved “roads” of the cemetery, especially on the wet days (I wear canvas shoes), but I decide to pave my own way today— not the best decision I have ever made.
The landscape of the cemetery is a swamp today. Taking less than 10 steps down the east slope from the center of the cemetery (I know that it is east because I have a compass app on my iphone) I am frozen in mud—stuck. By frozen I mean, I noticed the fun wet feeling you get when your feet sink more than an inch (past the white rubber of my Converse) into the soaked earth. There is no feeling more easily explained and universal understood than—wet.
Looking down I see the mud rising, climbing up the rubber and staining the fabric of my shoes. I have become an anchor—a root, planted in this moment. I don’t take another step forward.
I think about staying here, becoming a tree. I lift my elbows. I look like a scarecrow. I let everything: my forearm’s, the bones in my wrists and my fingers become branches, knots, and twigs. I am one of them now. The thought makes me smile. I look around and a laugh from my belly. I think, if my parents could see me right now, they would know the value of my education.
Cory Jones - last of the Ents.
ReplyDeleteI love this post because the Converse become a metaphor for the instability of life in a way. They sink in, even as they are the thing that keeps the speaker moving. Lovely.
ReplyDeleteYour actions in this piece make me think of a child (in a good way of course) because you're being creative with your current situation. You're playing pretend and taking a nasty situation (being muddy and wet) and having fun with it. I enjoyed this, I had no idea it would end with you doing that! It's always fun to let your inner child go sometimes and you did. And you liked it! Do things like that more often, it's liberating!
ReplyDeleteHaha - "last of the Ents" :-)
ReplyDeleteI loved this entry - yours have just gotten stronger as the semester has gone on - for how evocatively I can *see* you engaging with this place. Though I do wonder how your parents feel about part of your education requiring you to spend time in a cemetery all semester ;-)