An Hour Alone in Nature

David M. FarleyLeave a comment

I heard the creaking of tree branches, (really one tree branch in particular, ) the buzz of flies, the rustle of leaves and the traffic below me, the cars one after the other. I also heard distinct bird calls, one high pitched, delivered in staccato, another fast and a loud woodpecker, drilling for bugs. I havent’t thought too much about the fact that all birds have their own unique call, but being in nature made me much more cognizant of this fact. Finally, when I was really quiet, and the wind wasn’t too fast, I could hear the click of ants on a log. I noticed that the wind has its own sound depending on how fast it’s going. I could see tree trunks of all different sizes, dead tree branches and stumps that made me consider the various ways in which nature has a cycle. Nothing is wasted, a log that has fallen. was now the home to ants and millipedes, and fungi. Looking at the tall trunks and the tiny thin stalks with shoots of a half a dozen leaves, I was reminded how the root systems are in the earth connected.

Looking at the sloping of the earth, I was amazed how roots would sit precariously close, and hang off the cliff. I saw one tree that looked like a tuning fork, it must have been an old tree because it was very tall. Seeing the small trees with leaves that reach out to the sun, I was reminded about various survival mechanisms that are abundant in the natural world. I saw swaying tree tops, branches that looked like they would fall at any minute and tiny green sprouts that poke out from under the brown and tan leaves, the remnants of a fire, black wood which made me consider chemical change, splintered branches, fat black ants, with visible mandibles, small round red bugs, small ants with white markings on their abdomens, flies that are almost the size of a dime, the yellow and white butterflies. A reminder that humans are just one species on this planet of millions of them.

As I was leaving the woods, I became angry at the fact that people had placed trash everywhere and had not chosen to keep that spot beautiful. I saw in the bottles and the blunt wrappers a parallel with the fact that humans have a deleterious effect on nature. Those ants, those trees, have existed for many more years than us, the birds have evolved just like humans have, and yet in the pursuit of progress we bulldoze the habitats of so many creatures without even thinking about the organisms that may call those areas home. After my experience, I felt close to nature and felt connected to the dry earth, the rustling wind, the green leaves and I noticed on my walk to class later that day, I was very careful not to step on any ants, if I could avoid it.

Apiary Maintenance

David M. FarleyLeave a comment

I haven’t posted here in awhile because I am busy getting my bachelors degree in English Lit / Creative Writing, but here is a rough version of an essay that began as a short story. Let me know what you think WP!

 

Apiary Maintenance

It was a Saturday and I had been looking for books about beekeeping. I went into the library in a different town. I do this from time to time. I like to go to different libraries. They all have their own smell: The perfume counter at Macy’s, the city bus, must and fresh cut grass. After digging through the science section for a while, I found the perfect book. It looked about fifty years old, with yellow pages. It looked out of place. The cover was faded green with a broken golden hive: Apiary Maintenance. “Perfect”, I thought. I leafed through the book: The importance of proper coverage, of the queen to the apiary’s functioning and the difference between drones and queens.

In J.E. Cirlot’s A Dictionary of Symbols, it states that “In Greece it (the bee) was emblematic of work and obedeience” (Cirlot). Sidenote: Obedience.

I remember an article that I had read that was about perfect societies resembling a hive. Each individual part working for the betterment of the whole. I thought about how different that method was from how modern society is organized, at least in the land of rugged individualism, where settlement occurred because of torn roots. The land of competition.

Cirlot again: “In Orphic teaching, souls were symbolized by bees, because they migrate from the hive in swarms, since it was held that souls ‘swarm’ from the divine unity in a similar manner. Side Note: I have no idea what the ‘divine unity’ is, but I like that idea quite a bit, it reminds me of the interconnectedness of the species, from the tiniest bacteria to the fungi underneath the ground that spans continents.

I remember reading a Sylvia Plath poem and she talked about how her father was a beekeeper for a time. She remembered his white outfit, the cover that protected his face from stings. I have no idea why that image sticks out to me from that poem. Beekeeping seems to be about the control of nature, it’s been said that bee’s wont attack a person unless they feel threatened or if the hive has been compromised.

I remember getting stung by a bee in the first grade. I remember the sting being red, painful, the smell of tooth paste. I felt thankful that I wasn’t allergic and that the pain quickly subsided. I remember being very young and hearing a story about how my uncle Mike, my Dad’s older brother had been drinking a soda outside and as he was taking a big drink a bee was in the can and Mike was stung in the throat. Mike was allergic and that bee sting could have killed him, but it didn’t.

I have read of gardens in urban areas that double as apiaries and I believe that to be a practical way to incorporate the natural world with the stone landscapes that one might find in the city.

A symbol, an important part of planet earth, their industriousness, for their mystery, bees are enigmatic.

One day, when I am not busy, I think that I might take up beekeeping as a hobby. Alone in the apiary, my thoughts echoing off an incessant buzz, my covered hands searching in the dark for the sweet mana in the hive.

How To Write

David M. FarleyLeave a comment

Grab a pen and a notebook, If the hand doesn’t feel cramped, if there is no physical strain whatsoever, do your words become sanitized by the ease in which you wrote them?
Go for the heavy stuff, for the light stuff, make poems where the audience gets blown up in the end, read Hemingway, Howard Zinn and the book of Revelation, when you see a biography of Houdini in the bookstore pick it up, read your work aloud,
Find friends who write, who edit, go get beers with them at shitty bars, discuss their editing project, keep a blog, write poems post them to the blog, find a few people in the world who like your stuff, use this as fuel for writing, experiment with writing practices writing haiku short stories flash fiction dialogue essays,
Prose poetry, news stories, copy, recipes, how-to’s, lists, fragments, stare at the clouds in the morning, look for stars at night, if none are visible imagine the sky is filled with them, learn a language, think about philosophy, don’t be mad at yourself when the words won’t come, be content to read and wait for the moment, don’t try for fame, try to connect,

Pay attention to the shadows on the ground of trees in fall summer spring and especially winter, seek out any body of water, but especially the ocean, stare out at the ocean, feel small in the world, but large in the world at the same time, pay attention to the sounds of the traffic, conversations, soles slapping pavement, pay attention to the small things, the wrinkles under the eyes, the lines on the mouths, if the skin is starting to sag, if the eyes look tired,

Find a spot in nature, revisit it over and over again, immerse yourself in other cultures, watch foreign films, look at art, all art, sculpture, plays, paintings, glass work installation pieces crafts, wonder at human achievement, recognize the paradox, identify yourself as an artist, take words and create landscapes, seascapes, breathe new life into static images, be an agent of rebirth, always try to connect, be enamored with the world, its cracks, its inconsistencies, pay attention to the news,

It’s a light that guides me. No different than others. A long tradition of torch bearers. It’s a light that is not blinding. Just bright enough. I think that every person finds their own light in life. It’s just that perceived bad hands ruin a person’s opinion of the whole game.

With All That Power

David M. FarleyLeave a comment

Spiders on the bed

Check bare walls for light switch

Fingertips gnawed off

 

Conversations with one

Gun in his mouth he

Pulls the trigger

 

Other turning around

Tells me this

Is not right

 

I can’t get lucky

Never sustained–Shamed

Into the corner

 

Built a room

For some who I

Have had to evict

 

One day the only place

my loved ones will live

Is in my dreams

 

Banker’s sons and daughters

Bricks in ordered fashion

Exemplify the fine stone masonry

 

Winter’s Branches 3

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White wall with silhouettes of branches moved by the wind cast with red light shadow moon’s glow. From dimmed screens come rumblings of power struggles and land-locked capitals. As Earth begins yielding to life again, against the center, new relics that have replaced old, razed and rebuilt, only names and faces change. How many have known nature of the imperial boot? Leaves shed, winter’s branches remain. The white wall in pale red light, shock to the system that requires the test of dreaming. After locating the light switch, begin with fragments, raw feeling like picking out a treasure map through scars. X marks the spot where the numbness, negation of country and of faith lies. No will to look at those who sold the farm for a few magic beans as anything but opposite of self.