Places for Purging

You know all those thoughts we think but never say out loud?
I think the mud of the cattail marsh takes them for us 
pulls them from us so they don’t build up 
so we don’t get stuck 
like how green clay grabs the filth from our pores 
the marsh mud tugs the muck from our minds
and holds on
and then at dawn and dusk 
releases all the sounds we swallow
lets them fly
as blackbirds scolding 
frogs moaning
cattails smoothing each other’s hair
deer blowing 
grass groaning
a wren spilling over with joy.
If you wade in and wait till sundown 
you might hear familiar voices 
saying very familiar things
as if your whole, quiet life
your mind has been shouting into a canyon
and here you are.

There seems to be a theme, for me, this time of year - a gotta get gone kind of squirming. There’s never anything tangible I’m running from - more a grasping for quiet, just a moment in the shade, amidst the loud colors, the moving and shaking of summer. Many people have this impulse, it’s not unique, but while most of them will find their escape on a high mountain peak or maybe a hot, sandy beach, make mine a boggy cattail marsh or a brushy old logging cut. Somehow these places have been the places I run to when the times call for running, and they give and take from me exactly what I need. So I’m gonna get gone for the weekend, not sure where yet, maybe just up the hill, maybe a mudbath in the marsh, a long walk in the hemlocks, or maybe I’ll just stick my head in the sand - I don’t know, but I do know I’m going to fully exercise my right to do with my body as I please, and take from it all the pleasure I can.

There will be oysters. And wine. And long silences.