Mother Nature

Do not mistake what you see all around you

everyday,

underfoot,

blurring past your peripheral vision.

This is not nature:

in all its glory,

wild,

with a life and energy

of its own

untouched by human ingenuity or imagination.

But should you find yourself in the wilderness,

do not mistake what you see all around you,

the grandeur,

the minute,

the soul tugging wonder of wherever you look.

This is not Nature.

This capital N creation is in our minds

and nowhere else.

We are shaping the mystery and the meaning

from our experience

and making the world

Good

or Nothing.

So when I step from my back porch,

minutes before sunrise,

the sky is the color of sky,

it is the same,

and different,

from the day before.

There’s a glistening of dew

on the Central field,

reflecting,

in each droplet,

that sky.

Who could possibly care how imperceptibly

the sky lightens?

A cottontail freezes in the grass.

No, it’s just a rabbit sitting in a mixed bunch

of weeds and grasses cut uniformly short.

Lilacs,

early this year.

No, I’m mistaken,

again.

It’s wisteria,

so unbelievably full of weeping blooms.

I peek through a hole in the fraying bamboo screen

and I see and hear a human-made waterfall.

But the earth is moving beneath my feet,

at a thousand miles an hour,

give or take,

as I walk toward East Heights.

The sun is rising just north of east

behind the clouds -

there, it breaks through,

a glowing orange.

I turn,

every window on Fraser

reflects the light,

then the sunlight

fires the flags

and on down the face of the building

like a burning bush.

I’m already on my way home.

The mist in the air

glows golden above the asphalt

of 15^th Street against the new growth of the trees

when I look back over my shoulder.

And the sun,

relative to the earth,

remains unmoved;

it is my path

rising up beneath my feet

at an imperceptibly

furious pace.

The brick walls of Central

are awash in the color of the sun

as it bleeds through the long angle

of atmosphere.

The effect is not to be believed.

Or might only be believed.

For Nature is in our minds.

The artificial prairie of the Central field,

budding trees around the perimeter,

and a line of power poles,

the wire sagging gracefully

from the pull of gravity

each time the tall, dead tree trunk releases its grip –

and on to the next pole,

a spider’s web of energy and information.

Life, the universe, and everything,

is so much repetition,

ordinary tasks,

mundane,

everyday,

business.

And the sun will rise again tomorrow,

whether we sleep,

or wake.

A word from management

Perhaps you have noticed that I have tried to settle into a pace. I have attempted to post on Thursday’s with limited success, but even some hearts beat irregularly. 

Still. Having noted my thoughts for a brief time, as the river keeps track of these things, I thought it appropriate to give an acknowledgement of thanks to the two who made this all possible – my mother and my father. It is with some sadness that they are no longer here on earth, to read these words or see what I see.

But the river moves on and I will not go into detail their many contributions to my achievements.

And as many do, but I in my own way, I would like to thank Name Withheld Here. My faith and lack thereof prohibits me from being more explicit or vocal. Suffice it to say that it is not for nothing that I do not believe in, nor acknowledge in mere words that which is deep within my soul or not, which surprisingly seems to exist, but what is written there eludes me, as does the river, at times.

So I play with words, baldly at times, with exuberance, at times, with intent, at times, like a child, at times.

And so, dear reader, if you have come this far, know that you are not the reason that I walk to the river, nor are you the reason that I write what I write, or take photographs of some of what I see. But I do appreciate your company. Your imaginary or perhaps merely hidden presence has helped me focus my attention and my thinking.

Give me a holler from where you are on this path - ahead, or behind or just waking from a nap in the underbrush, if you are so inclined. I think we pass on the street from time to time. You know, or can find, my email address. If you write by hand, as some still do, now and then, my street address is in the phone book. And of course, comments can be made directly to the blog if you have a Google account, or other recognized ID, which helps to scare away anonymous trolls.

A little housekeeping note. Some of you will realize that I have tended to post a bit of writing separate from a preceding picture. This makes navigating the archive awkward. My intent, moving forward, is to post photos and words under one heading so that they are formally joined.

Furthermore, I plan to vary my path on a whim. The river still beckons, nay draws, but my feet may spend more time going by way of Mary’s Lake, or Mt. Oread, for example.

But even when my back is turned, and I am pointed in another direction, I am walking to the river. It’s a kind of space-time conundrum.

And, I think the writing may drift farther afield, as well.

Again, a few of you have indicated that you follow, on occasion, this chronicling of my walk to the river. While I will continue entirely on my own, if need be, some signal that you recognized the blaze I left on a tree, or the three stones stacked one on top of the other so that I, or others, could find that spot again, would be uplifting.

I suggested at the outset a word from the management and here I have given paragraph upon paragraph.

Here are a few words, stacked one next to the other: walk to the river. With, in a word, gratitude.

So be it.

Bert Haverkate-Ens

Earth Day, South Park, Lawrence, Kansas, Earth, 2012

Some individuals of some species are so damaged

that they can only watch and wonder.

Some individuals of some species are so endangered

that they might no longer be able to watch and wonder –

Who …

Who are you?

Still, they are striking animals –

What must they be thinking?

And the owls.

Walking Scales

Walking to the river is concrete.

There is no pun intended,

but it is appreciated.

The practice of walking is designed

to make my thinking more concrete,

more solid, more grounded.

I walk, step by step,

on mostly hard surfaces,

often concrete, the surfaces

slightly rough, but mostly level,

so that my mind is free to focus

on what I see,

the colors and textures,

nature, buildings, river and sky,

the faces,

and the leather of women’s boots,

to see, and let it register,

and then consider what this material world

means within the tangled ways of my mind.

I do not wish to smooth out all my thinking,

I want it to become clear and concrete.

Of course, the swinging of my legs,

the stride, the pace, helps set a beat.

I find I think differently when I walk,

a kind of foot-mind coordination occurs.

And a destination is important.

Knowing the direction also frees the mind

to focus on the task.

These are simple things,

not meant to be prescriptive,

even for myself, only to say

that every action and every observation and  every thought

has a corresponding reaction in the mind.

Which is why our minds are so jumbled and full to begin with.

And consciously choosing some kinds of actions and some particular thoughts

may prove to be unjumbling.

But it is not some zen-like concentration I seek,

some total emptying my mind of all thought,

of every distraction or abstraction.

I endeavor to bring my self, my being, to a place of attention

so that I walk at the leading edge of that balance between

what is outside my mind and what is within.

I attempt to walk with my mind forward at the farthest extension of my ocular nerve,

my mind not churning well within myself through the clutter of past experiences and thoughts

nor plotting well beyond myself anticipating the future,

but seeing and appreciating what is passing before me at a walking – or pausing - pace.

I do not find myself poised in a zone of perfect awareness for long,

but there are moments when my mind is in tune with what I see,

and a sense of satisfaction with a bit of the world and my own mind pervades my being.

But I continue to practice.

And so I walk,

to sort out my thoughts,

by trying to focus,

not on principles or abstractions,

but on what is concrete,

being physically present and bodily aware,

as my mind plays through its scales.

I walked my fingers up and down the keyboard

when I was younger.

Now I walk my feet from my home to the Kaw River Bridge

and back.

And then, after practice, I would play.

Now, it’s all play.

I appreciate the discipline more.

Panhandling

The stoplight at City Hall,

mere steps from the river,

repeats,

every hundred and twenty seconds,

that the walk sign is on to cross 6^th Street,

walk sign is on.

Leonard Cohen sang these words,

did you ever go clear?

T. S. Elliot wrote

that in the room the women come and go

talking of Michelangelo.

Wendell Berry wrote,

in black ink,

on a postcard I have stuck in a book that he wrote,

that to do all he can to keep his money out of corporate pockets is one of his amusements.

Mike Brennan asked,

Does it hurt to think?

Annie Dillard wrote,

among many fine words,

that the world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside by a generous hand.

David Orr wrote,

speaking about poetry,

that out of such small, unnecessary devotions is the abundance of our lives sometimes made evident.

It is recorded in the gospels,

and I have no reason to doubt it,

that Jesus wept.

Mark Jost responded,

if not exactly to the question,

What is truth?

with where are my pants?

There are many words that I recall from time to time.

They are lodged in my mind.

I walk to the river

to attune my mind

to what matters

to me.

I ascribe meaning

to what I see.

It is an exercise.

Every 24 hours, or so,

I am on the Kaw River Bridge,

looking at the sky reflected in the water.

Sometimes I fail to notice what I see.

Sometimes it appears that the sky is reflected in the water.

If I see you there,

I might ask you what you see,

and what you think it means.

Your answer will be important to me

in that moment,

but of all the things that I have seen,

and among all the words that I have heard,

and, yes, all the phrases that I have read,

my mind has chosen and not chosen

to remember but a small fraction.

I walk to the river to attune my mind,

to learn to see

and to remember what matters to me

so that when you ask me what is on my mind,

I can speak clearly,

and perhaps my words will ring in your mind

like an coin in a beggar’s cup.