Uprooted
The scribbling on the old atlas matched the numbers on the mailbox. Finally here, I turned down the long dirt driveway towards the river.
Nestled under great pine trees a small cabin sits quietly, gray,
weathered rather than worn,
the stairs covered with a fine layer of bright green duvet. Its wooden handrail spongy and porous. Fragile, pierced by rusty nails, abandoned to the pecking of birds. A home of lichen and moss where, on the deck, still stands a cockeyed bench with a broken leg. The window in the front door reflecting a landscape of gently rolling hills holding behind my back a river’s presence while a grainy beam of light, filled with dust, filters inside. A non-descript contour of objects and furniture stacked waist high, crowding the space with an odd sense of hastiness frozen in time.
There was no description or fine print along the numbers scribbled on the road atlas. Just a fast straight road to somewhere. In the dim light, step by step, hands follow the continuous landscape of shapes, honoring strength and non resistance. A narrow path, the width of a single body, slowly emerges through the chaos left behind and somewhere, between a makeshift kitchen, want-to-be bed and woodstove, a bare-boned nest to call home.
The reflection has vanished from the window pane, leaving this displaced soul looking towards the river in a foreign place just before sunset. Something is calling. Something is calling to walk, barefoot. Something is insisting, loosen the tongue of your shoes. As if that something humming through the bones knows. It wants to| knows to dance. There is nobody here, only the silhouettes of trees standing against the empty sky. Go. Nobody is watching. Walk your dance across the untouched meadow.
The open. Looking. Pausing. Looking. Pausing again. Nothing. Nothing?
There is a stillness drifting towards me.
Something.
Large, steady wings gliding along air currents, a characteristic horizontal elegance. A silhouette, le grand oiseau bleu, h(é)ron. An expansive stillness enters me as the majestic bird circles around, signaling its landing. Flight settles amidst the bare branches of a dead tree. By choice, face to face on each side of the river bed. Wild, delightful, unexpected meeting.
Here, sitting, watching. As fish perhaps? I see nothing.
Dare not move. Please don’t leave.
Le grand h(é)ron, là, tout à côté, regarde. A presence is looking at me. Visitation. A barefoot step walking the distance to you. Closer and closer to the river’s edge. Inching towards the return of humming bones. A body in the midst, as if held by something in a heron’s gaze. Lost in enchantment, irresistibly ever closer to you, shaping what is left of myself to the very curves of the river’s bed.
At the foot of the dead tree, arriving speechless, standing greeting. Under the fine drizzle, stillness porous like skin. Inside, something ripples just like the river water between dirt banks. Eroding and gathering currents under the arm like branches. Sitting. Neck coiled. Wispy feathers fluttering. Long narrow beak steady, poised on the straight. Bright yellow iris focused through its black center, absolutely unwavering. Enigmatic stillness, a landscape met on different terms.
Drizzle swells into rain. A wet shirt clings like armor, heavy between me and you. Motionless conversation. Quivering. The silver lining of aspen leaves. All around shivers, invisible below the threshold of sound. Suddenly, out of nowhere, another h(é)ron arrives, flapping and folding powerful wings. Perched. All returns to silence. By my side, two herons on a dead limb looking at me, looking at them. I stand awestruck when a third, grand oiseau bleu, lightly squats on an upper branch. Thinner, more precarious. Feeling blessed to be welcomed by the wild presence, a whisper breaks the silence. You are so beautiful.
The rain insists to be felt like water on a river bed. Fingers, my fingers fiddling with the shirt’s buttonhole, plate. Dusk is creeping in, the contours between things fading again. Oh my heart, something, something is happening here… humming to the feathered yellow eyes straight beaked beauties beyond what my eyes can see or my ears can hear. Something of you is filling me,. I hear my words echoed back to me… the beauty you see in us, is in you.
Slowly the whole length of the undone shirt slips gathering itself around my hips. In the stillness of it all, my bare chest, the birds, the dead tree, the trembling leaves, the meandering river, all gathering rain. Where night begins, I walk back to the cabin floating sure-footed as a creature sensing its way through the dark, navigating the narrow|sorrow path between a door and makeshift bed. Laying what is left of me down by the window open to the stars, dreaming eyes open behind clsoed eyelids, expansive between the sheets, melting like honey,
