Patch of Earth: A One-Week Journal in Early January (to be read all at once, or not).
I’ve decided to fix my gaze upon a small patch of earth just outside of my home. For seven days I will visit and revisit the same three foot by five foot swath of earth in order that I might (if only for a microsecond) catch a glimpse of what this patch actually looks like. Why? Because I walk over, by, across, through, and in it every day.
January 1st:
I see you, tiny ant, but I thought you were supposed to be sleeping right now. What a dead and rotting forest you have wandered into. Each blade of grass is a wire-brushed monument to be conquered. You have such a vast expanse before you; but where are you going? You only have to repeat this process a thousand times more. How long do you live? Can your hair-thin legs carry you so far? They are peculiar; those fuzzy alien-like appendages.
I would have considered you a cliché to both Poetry and Nature before your microscopic legs carried you onto this patch of earth. How many poets have written about ants? How many poems are about ants? As many as there are ants to be sure! But what new history do these ant-poets strive to get across to the rest of the colony? Whatever it may be I say it is trite, for we already know that we’re small, and we already know that life is a struggle full of ups and downs, full of mountains and valleys, full of obstacles and oases, full of storms and calm, full of (enter cliché descriptors here). Indeed, I would have considered you a sorry metaphor, but I now see that it is you who propels the earth, and I am the cliché here.
You are distracting me, tiny ant. For, though I am drawn to your liquid black body and your tantalizing, spiny legs, I am supposed to be watching this patch of earth, and I am to watch it that I might see what it actually looks like. I see you are struggling, tiny ant, just like that tired metaphor suggests; you and your minute entomological narrative. But, do not progress too much further, tiny ant, or else you will wander off of my patch of earth and cease to exist, for you tread ever-so-closely to the very edge of my focus and, just like every other poet-being on this planet, I am a narcissist and a pedant, and if you venture out of my line-of-sight you will disappear.
January 2nd:
I’m sitting here inspecting the parched maw that is my patch of earth. The knife blades which were once lush and emerald are now tiny brittle fingers; fingers that yearn for drink, reaching for wisps of dew that will never quench; shriveled hands extended. Dusty wind combs the little brown wires, and cracks part the dirt, exponentially. Though I do notice that some sign of life does still exist here, for a faint hue of green; a diluted, muted shade of Pea tries to make its way through the burnt January veins, and a soft arpeggio of birdsong rides the dancing alabaster wind.
January 3rd:
How wonderful it is to see a squirrel on this patch of earth, though I feel that it too might think I’m a cliché. It immediately finds an acorn; a tiny, improbable jewel woven into the winter-grass. So busy are its quick and delicate hands that it looks as if the squirrel is untangling a miniature, nut-brown ball of yarn. I wonder what it’s weaving. The squirrel hasn’t seen me yet because I have not moved from this spot, though as I pick up my pen it scurries ten yards; a safe distance for this particular type of bearded threat. It stands on its haunches, this small squirrel, with a muscular and silken sand-colored fur glistening in the bright midday rays, and it carries with it a potential oak tree. At this point in time the notion occurs to me that I have never seen a squirrel urinate or defecate. It also occurs to me that saying or writing words like urinate and defecate seem pompous, and I’m not entirely sure why. But, these words are accurate, for I cannot say that the squirrel goes to the bathroom, because it doesn’t, which isn’t to say that it can’t because it very well could; I’ve just never seen it.
January 4th:
It’s night, but that great flashlight in the sky casts its ghost beams upon my small patch of earth. Jupiter hangs out just below and to the left of the moon, at least for now. I scan the ground and think how strangely things appear in diverse shades of light; everything is skeletal. It seems that different luminosities proscribe different awareness-es, that is, certain perceptions of things, different motions, and different visual frequencies. The once brown wires of grass are now seemingly opaque. They appear as if the glass hair of a dying elder: so brittle, yet so full of wisdom and experience that you would certainly try to avoid crushing it with your feet.
I also seem to think differently under the satin black sheet of night. I feel more attuned to my insignificance. Everything is painted in melancholy; a shade of loneliness that only owls can sympathize with. The cold waft of wind is the sighing earth, and the billions of stars are really just pinhole-punctures; they’re breathing holes for those of us trapped in this colossal cosmic box. The light comes from the outside: we hunger for it, and we can only see it at night. But, then again, this is night; this is when souls are meant to flutter in dream, i.e., in phantasmagoria. This is when souls are meant to sleep. To be sure, there is definitely a sense in looking at my patch of earth, but I am mesmerized, for there is a greater sense in looking at that hovering, black-canopied ceiling while wondering if this is all just a dream.
January 5th:
I walked across my patch of earth today and paid it no mind, which is something I do more often than not. I don’t really see what’s there; I only drag across it with an oblivious and predictable gait. I am distracted by the camaraderie of commerce. I am occupied by the beatitudes of busy-ness, rather than nourished by the renewing solicitude of Nature. I have a short and incapacious memory, but how can one not? Shiny things are everywhere, and sirens hypnotize us. Honestly, the only reason I’ve paid so close attention to my small patch of earth thus far appertains to poetic obligation. I feel as though I see this patch of earth better in the framework of my own imagination: a representation of the real tends to be more pleasing than the real per se: the imagined real is more real than the real real, (whatever that means I’ll leave to the imagined reader, really). But, this tangent proves my very point! I am distracted too easily. I guess I’ve become complacent. I guess I should go back and pay my respects to that patch of earth; I imagine it would want me to.
January 6th:
It’s another day that the eyes of the sun burn through us puny earthlings. I can feel its lasers on the back of my neck. It’s no surprise to me that my patch of earth seems etched and desiccated, for what relief that has come seems mythical at best. Though I find myself at least optimistic: rumors of precipitation hang in the balance, albeit delicately.
January 7th:
The grass is still dormant, and cracks still wander the ground, for life is stubborn; it takes its own time to recover, (or to develop). But this should be no surprise, really, for such is the progression and sustenance of the natural order of things, each element of which depends upon its antecedent; a cog in that great, mystical, universally-varied, and mechanical hierarchy we call Nature.
January 8th:
I’m not sure how one could ever get bored of looking at things of nature; it is so creative and industrious. The parched ground in front of me cracks so that even infinitesimal traces of moisture can reach the depths, and the roots there are thankful. Nature is a wonder. But this is a complex idea. Is my patch of earth really nature? I mean, I’m not sure if this grass is even native to the area in which I live. Just because a thing of nature exists within or utilizes a network of artifice does not make the thing itself natural even if it is behaving, well, naturally. We have corralled dying ships to rebuild dying corals; this is not natural. Nature does not preserve herself in this way. Or maybe she does: is guilt natural?
I take my eyes off of my patch and glance around to other houses nearby. I see a variety of species of different grasses. Is this natural? Or is this just a human byproduct: trying to organize and reform that which was once natural. I understand that this entire area was long ago a massive grassland, but such a vastness confounded the narrow vision of humanity. If humans see no pattern, then pattern must be created, just like one looks to the night-sky and sees a lion here or a triangle there. But these things do not exist, not even in nature; they are just ideas impressed upon celestial dust, and it is only when these events or ideas are given names that they truly exist, for it is here and only here that such events and ideas are called into being, (ex Nihilo, Nihil fit).
I look around and I see grids and squares of grass, which, in all honesty, are just larger versions of my own small patch of earth. Is this natural? Is human nature natural? Maybe. As I walk to my mailbox I cross my small patch of earth. This is my small patch of earth, and I’m not sure what it really looks like, but I do know that we all live on small patches of earth, just like the earth is a small patch of the universe. I wonder what it looks like.
