wilds Archives

wild fools

beyond the towers where the guards stand waiting

Oh, you are a writer? Give us a hero story, then! We’ll get the popcorn, let’s go.

I am not very interested in the hero story.

Tell us about the dragon! How it was slain and everything is safe again!
I cannot. I have no faith in the premise.

I have always loved dragons. Imagined ones, metaphorical ones. Besides, I tend to talk to lizards when I walk.

I tire of the way the story must always be about the hero, or those waiting for the hero, or those tending the hero, or those preparing the world for the hero’s return. I want to know who kept the living going while all these heroes were off on their quests. I would like to hear the lizard tell what happened.

It is curious how often the dragon dies only for its guarded fortune to change hands. The gold. The virgins. Another castle.

I have become suspicious of people who can state what they are about. Perhaps this is required now. A mission statement. A brand. A clean line of purpose. Meanwhile the shadow goes about its work.

I know only that my blind spots arrive in multitudes. So, I keep watch instead. I make little shelters. It’s much more bird feeder than monument.

Hi, birds.

There you are.

Take what you need.

I have no illusion that I am feeding you.

You are feeding me.

Language feels this way, too. I’m not climbing Jacob’s ladder or pulling a sword from a stone. I am near a hearth, tending a loaf. I keep making the same loaf, because wherever I am, there are always hungry mouths. Take what you need.

Hi, birds. There you are again. Beyond the towers, where the guards are waiting, the gardens have begun again without the hero. Come eat.

wilding

to go forth, into seed, carrying on

If one day when finally tone-deaf I should walk guffawing into the solemn halls, swishing gauze skirts to knock stolid bishops over wooden kings while laughing too loud and blowing smoke rings, it may be observed, by anyone still living who knew me when I was more mild in manner and patient in my time, that she had been a patient woman, once.

But, as these things go, by the time the cork is good and gone, so are the ones with any memory of milder times. So, I will have to be ready when I finally go, to enter with full conviction into the role, because patience, however much a virtue, will only do until the time for waiting has run out, and after so much of that one has to decide to give up the temporary shelter that comes of waiting and dive in full and fast to what certain strangers will describe as the antics of an eccentric elder at fashionable parties, who, after all was just relentless with her offhand remarks, head back and laughing the whole time.

Enter Here

With music

Strange angel, admit yourself. The upward reach is not enough where the first teachers are these cave systems writhing, diving beneath these soils, to meet the blind fish in tiny pools, in your undiscovered country still so untamed that it is unafraid to play haunted host to invisible harp. You sing the fine wind plucked from delicate fissures of split rock, and knock again. Come in.