Climbing a Fence

My shadow climbs a Sun Canyon fence. Contrast adjusted.

--Mitchell Hegman

Of Utmost Importance

A single yellow leaf released itself from a perfectly still cottonwood stand and gently swayed down into a silver brook flexing just below. The brook withdrew the leaf. A man sat watching.

--Mitchell Hegman

Quirk

Here is another of my quirks: earthworms. After moderate to heavy rains, the parking lot at my place of work fills with earthworms sprawled in various forms of pose, as if waiting for a photographer to snap a few centerfold shots of them. The worms are, in reality, fleeing the natural features of the nearby landscaping due to the production of carbonic acid in the soil following rainstorms. The carbonic acid, at a minimum, is a kind of earthwormy drug. At a maximum, the acid may kill them.

My quirk is specifically this: I feel compelled to save the lives of at least a dozen worms following any rainstorm. If caught by the sun in our lot, they will certainly perish. So, after arriving at work this morning, firing up my computer and brewing coffee, I went back out to the after-rain asphalt and began flicking worms back onto the grass.

I have, on occasion, been caught in the act of saving worms by coworkers. “What in the hell are you doing?” I recall one of my male coworkers asking on such an instance.

“I am saving lives,” I answered.

“They are worms.”

“Yup, had that figured early on.”

“Worms,” he repeated changing the word from a pea to an anvil.

“Yeah, I can’t help it.”

That is the deal—I cannot stop myself. A quirk. You don’t embrace them. They embrace you.

--Mitchell Hegman

Ten Questions to Ask X (or Someone Similar to X)

1. Have you ever cut your own hair in anger?
2. Would you be upset if, in the next ten-thousand years, natural forces whittled Florida down to a narrow path leading out into the aquamarine ocean?
3. Given that our home is so near the Great Divide, do your prefer your rivers flowing to the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic Ocean? Note: for this question please ignore Triple Divide Peak in Glacier National Park, Montana, which sheds water to the Pacific, Atlantic, as well a Hudson Bay by way of Canada.
4. Have you ever held a dead songbird in your hand?
5. If, in a friend’s home, you chanced upon a painting hanging crooked on the wall, would you attempt to nudge the frame plumb again?
6. Do you believe that our species invented mathematics or is this something we discovered?
7. Will you continue to read books made of paper?
8. Have you ever stopped while hiking in a remote forest and made love in a cross-sunlight place with boulders and trees all around you?
9. Is there anyone you do not agree with politically and socially, but still admire?
10. Do you like the smell wood burning in an open fire?

--Mitchell Hegman

The Scent of Rain

Clouds. Strong wind. Then rain. Finally, the smell of wet stone and grass has filled the air after a long dry. I could not find all of Orion in the cloud-cross sky, but managed a glimpse of his sword when I gazed up as I drove away from my house on my early morning commute to work.

His sword will do.

I have been thinking much about Theresa Colley and her climb back to health. And if I were there with her, I would wish to be the scent of something like rain. Not to be the rain, but the scent of rain. I wish to be a small part of something bigger. All is captured within the scent of rain: loam, green tendril, solid stone, a child’s freshly washed hair, the hint of new flowers.

And if I cannot be the scent of rain, then, please, allow me to be Orion’s sword, fixed above and steady.

--Mitchell Hegman

Recurring Thought

Godspeed, Theresa Colley.
I am against all that you are against.
I am with all that you are with.

--Mitchell Hegman

Male Housecat

I woke again—several times—late last night and found one of my male housecats sleeping there against my pillow. This cat seems drawn to me only while I am sleeping. During the day, the cat typically shies away when I reach out to pat his head, as if we were magnets of similar poles that automatically repel. The cat developed the habit of sharing my pillow only a few days ago. I am not sure why. Now, I have similarly attained the habit of reaching out each time I wake in the darkness to see if I can feel the warm poultice that is this slumbering cat. Soft, he. Warm, he. And soon purring.

We are alive and vital, and have somehow collected together in the darkness.

In an email to a friend I suggested that this cat might by watching my dreams. Maybe that is the attraction to me late in the night. Since I no longer remember my dreams, I wonder if the cat is not only watching, but stealing by best dreams—the ones where fish in ponds kiss my toes, the dreams where I am young again. By the time I wake each morning, the male cat is gone and I recall, from the whole night though, nothing except reaching out for those few brief moments when I came awake.

All of us, man and beast, are frozen when asleep. Locked fast inside our own bodies, we pivot along against the smear of stars, propelled by forces far beyond our control. The days, though, belong to us. That much we own. In the full light, we choose our colors and our naming songs. With cats, as with people, as with all stardust infinity, we must find purpose to make both the easy and the difficult connections during that time. First, love. Next, flowerboxes, shiny cars, exotic coffee, and chasing new mice below ancient pine trees.

I am starting small. I begin with this single housecat. I begin with small moments deep in the night. Sooner or later, out there in the sunlight, I will find you. We do not yet know who we are. None of us know who we are. Not just yet.

--Mitchell Hegman