The Recalcitrant Self
The Earth is a violent place.
Deeply Rooted
My friend, the novelist and poet Israel Bonilla, wrote an aphorism, inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson, that has stuck with me for the past week or so, and is likely to stick with me for much longer time than that. Israel wrote: “Philosophy and art are the perennial refuges of secluded consciousness, the sources of recalcitrant selves.” This line evokes, for me at least, images of a quiet courtyard, lined with citrus and pomegranate, its niches filled with votive candles; the courtyard could be for a church or some other consecrated building, or it could be more-or-less ornamental, a fixture of some grand old public garden or historic estate. In other words, the aphorism evokes a space of contemplation, a space of purpose, where those qualities are rooted at a much greater depth than whatever practical or motivational literature can achieve.
Silver Shadow
The shell casings were fresh, dropped onto the newly fallen snow, mostly 12-gauge buckshot with some .357 mixed in; but the trailhead was empty, vacant of cars, only a single set of treads, my own excepted. Sporadic gunfire echoed elsewhere on the mountain, though it was difficult to tell how close, single shots or a burst, followed by a long pause, the wind dusting the second growth fir and cedar, dropping threads of snow onto the warm hood of the Toyota RAV.
The clear-cuts made for a beautiful view of Silver Star Mountain, namesake of the trail, and, to the north, the broken cone of Mount Saint Helens, peeking out from the line of hills like a cracked molar polished and ready for capping. The circuit was a little over four and half miles, a respectable distance in the snow, especially for someone setting off well past noon. I had no gaiters or snowshoes, but the snow was shallow and compact, easy to traverse. I thought I had overdressed—(too many layers)—until the sun began to set.
The moon, a day short of full, rose above the mountain snowfields, which glowed a dull iridescent purplish blue, like unpolished bismuth. The leaves of Oregon grape, in truth an evergreen barberry, catching the last of the sunlight, poked out livid in the snow. I came back to the road about a quarter of a mile short of the trailhead. A jumble of burnt logs lay across the track. A sign for a horse crossing had been peppered with buckshot. As I was walking back into the lot, a light truck, an old Ford Ranger, came speeding up the road, drifting along hairpin turns, until it swung into full view, its lights flashing brilliantly beneath the darkening forest. The driver and I tipped our hats to each other as we passed, he on his way, me on mine.
Driving down from the trail, I found, right on the snowline, the carcass of a small deer, not much bigger than a yearling, dumped on the side of the road. It had been decapitated, the bones stripped clean, with only scraps of flesh and fur remaining on its dismembered legs. The ribcage shone bright in the headlamps, casting corrugated shadows on the grass. In old Japan, along the Tokaido road, a travelling monk might compose a haiku, or a whole sequence of them, on the occasion of such an image. I could only think of a single line: the Earth is a violent place.
