Entry 13, "From a day of the written life of Arstin Viggin" secret nursery practices, The groupies and the buskers

The secret journals of Arstin Viggin.

Entry one, Day 36, July the 18^th.

It is 6 Ante Meridian, where we are sleeping in the old storage shack on the other side of the ranch.  Smoky  sun filters through the dirty pan windows in still dust motes. I awaken from the old military style cot they have in storage here, beside me is Caru and the rest of our wet packing’s. She is awakening in roll-around motions as my creaky steel starts to get out. The day of yester, heavy rain had come and soaked our tent and clothes- my musty sleeping bag was the biggest blow, leaving me with a fleece blanket and the fanged cold night

Toward the kitchen.

            I go to the coffee.

And sit down and open the wooden swing-door where the morning companion lays full.

            The man on the floor closes his eyes to become upward- a piece of that vanishing particle.

Colours

Coloring the vista

            Nothing

            Nothing

           

I’am nothing now

Afterwards the coffee is poured and nothing sits in silence.

                I re-appear in the refrigerator,

  Caru walks through the swing-door

Our shadows meet on the tiny gray ground, moving backwards and forwards.

                  

It is 7:30 and we’re both in the car, the radio is playing and a young black girl is describing how the school she attends does not teach The Civil Rights Movement. She says that her friends laughed when she could not explain who ‘Jim Crow’ was. I think for awhile…

It is an appalling situation.

            Maybe someday, I’ll offer public high-schools a seminar covering all aspects of The Civil Rights Movement. I know all kinds of how to study and explain history, so why not children.

But then maybe, I’ll start a whole school, calling it “The School of the Colonized People of North America”.

And we’ll start a revolution there.

            Now I’am getting out of the car and onto the gravel parking lot. All around us is gold smitten rods flowing into and through green trees. Caru and I get to work by 7:34 and everything is okay. This is a place of monkish attitude; passing knowledge of universal disapproval, but with the generosity of human forgiveness. We both quietly vow to get here sooner next time.

           

  We board the bed of a truck and trundle through the wilderness. Our driver slowly navigates the puddles and tree limbs that have seemingly filled or moved over night. We speak softly in the morning and listen to the birds. In the house of life and death there is little need for loud voices.

      Once  stopped,  Our cohort descends like ants off of the stricken mound, and begin to grab their bottles, sickles, hats.

For many long hours we will cut through the fields. The sensation of slicing roots sends small reverberations through the hands. A soundless commentary on the ending of small life force. 

 There are different positions in the fields and rows. All along small life giving orbs are being constructed, the heralding guardians of our own races mutualistic helix driven relationship. In our hands small Oak saplings sit across from Honey Locust buds. We dig like miners, in to our children, the jewels among the dirt, laying down many obstacles, foes. 

         In the early morning Ron and Nestor go to the front of the row, far away from the rest of our group. In silence they apply themselves into heavy bushes of Poor man’s weed. It looks like the frilly fan of dinosaur times, a small sub-grass weed with fractal webs of soft leaves. I think that they must both enjoy the silent start of the morning, plowing whole bodily into the work of clearing the Weeds.
     And all around us is the work. 

               We work for a long time in the sun.
yesterday’s rain has made the ground black and soggy. I like to sit my knees down on a bed of just-razed weeds and sink into the mud. I pull the poor mans weed out and toke it out from my mouth.
It is break time and I ‘am hitting a bowl of marihuana in the parking lot. My arms and legs are starting to build momentum to the day. It is cool while clouds pass on a heavy wind. I watch the trees dance and let the drug come over my eyes.

Soon we are back,

And forth,

Across the field in our own different ways and pathologies.

When one wants solitude you go to the deeper jungles and sit in silence. Others break into pairs all day talking- bowed down and hidden past the taller trees, who can say what is happening all day through the field?

       I glide to the deep end and sit down glazed over. The pot makes me slow and clumsy, but I don’t mind taking my time in the afternoon. It feels worth the preponderance, the severity and significance, of when trees show you their dancing.

      I turn to the others as lunch comes closer. I dream of telling them all that we are truly a holy ordos of peoples, here to protect and serve the natural stewards of the planet. I think about a time when I had said that at the graveyard, and a young man with black stubble, black eyes, black hair, agreed to my declaration.
In the end, I say nothing and walk to the car alone.

Lunch Lunch Sandwhiches Sandwhiches,

             Later Ron is telling me about the Coma he spent 3 months of his life in.
A case of meningitis had the doctors saying he would never walk again.
I see him bend down carefully to pluck a crabgrass and know he is a born survivor.

Later,

     We are drinking water by the canteen. Janey is saying “You guys can come over to my place and take a shower!”

 Later we will go there with mixed results.

          Now it is the end of the day.

             Nestor is calling to us from the bottom of the field, Erin is standing beside him looking out.

      inside my heart I know it must be a worthy item of inspection. I make a mad dash, pumping arms and legs to catch a glimpse.

Across the road, as I turn the angles,

I see the black figured shape of a Feline.
“Gato Grande”. The beast is big with wide eyes staring us all down , the long tail swishing over its body.

The mountain lion is in motion as I come down the sidewell, it lopes its heavy body over to the tree line and disappears. 

Caru and Janey are too  late to see it. I am glad I ran down.
Nestor says it must have been a Mountain Lion.
I ask him why not a bobcat?
He says
“The tail. The tail es big”
he waves his arms threateningly in the air.

We are all excited and nervous.
I tell nestor “That cat has you’re number!”
I wanted it to sound cool so I slide my hand to my throat. 

He walks off while I wonder if it was offensive.
            

 Looking at the trees, I know it dosen’t matter.

The End.