The secret
journals of Arstin Viggin.
Entry one, Day 36,
July the 18th.
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.
