Book #2

a story about a chestnut

it was to a young chestnut
that i had truly met
for the first time
...
as i browse into my memory
i'm not sure when i first noticed it
but when i did
it was but a slashed stump
with many young sprouts desperately trying to continue the legacy of what had once been.
scrawny, almost, they were.
fragile...
seemingly.
in truth, they are resilient little things.
today they stand as if they had stood here many generations before.
prideful, at a glance -
they are not ashamed to take up space
yet do not complain when pushed back
as some have tried to do.
...
today
it started with a gentle ebbing of drowsiness
that lulled me into a nap
jerked away by human requirements
which i set aside
(for once)
and submitted to sleep.
the second nap was
one of those naps that take too long to feel good
and so,
as it did,
took an hour and left me feeling bad.
so i went outside
to reset my senses
feeling the textured concrete and cushiony grass with my feet
breathing in the cool and moist atmosphere
eating a banana to cleanse my mouth
speaking gently to empty my mind
and when my mind was empty
it had no more to say
as i sat my the strawberries and mint and snapdragons and tomatoes and grass and
silence
in the head
no thoughts necessary
hear
the gentle rustling
the unaffecting conversations
the bird calls
the
drip
rain?

pitter
gently

patter
ever so slowly

drop
just the first fringes of it

i would dispose of my banana peel
and get distracted
by the freshly pruned undercanopy
of the chestnut

(which
in the recent year
i had come to ponder the heritage of.
was it American?
or European?
how did it get here?
if European, it must've been an immigrant.
if American, where did it come from?
how long had it been here?
does it have family?
but i did not think of these questions today)

i sat under it's foliage
like a leafy green umbrella
and took a dead branch
and pulled it away
and peeled at its cracked skin
and spoke with the tree -
a conversation i don't wish to reproduce without her consent -
but to be shared is the safety and peace that her cover gave to me.
i spent so little time near her
picking and prodding at dry bark
for no reason other than
that i can exist.

and i realize this:
so often,
i wish that i were not praised for my intelligence
nor pushed to follow creativity
i wish that i were not characterized by my skills
but rather,
that i could simply exist.
i imagine myself in fields and forests and beaches and cloudscapes
where i know i would not,
in my current form,
thrive -
one, for lack of food
two, for lack of substance
that is,
i would have nothing to do
and in lack of something to put to intelligent or creative work
i would die of boredom
- but in these dreams
i do thrive
for lack of requirement.
in them, there is no need to do any thing.
i need not fulfill modern human tasks
(born of the first-world late capitalist environment)
nor any basal human tasks.
i need not talk
nor think
nor draw
nor eat
nor watch
nor enjoy.
there are no expectations
and that is where i found heaven -
under the low canopy of a young chestnut
doing nothing important
for no particular reason.