A Jewel in the Net: Kestrel Heart

Dawn picks through the dark thicket

through which I’ve just come –

smudges of bloom persist like just-

poured champagne, high-scents of wild sage

and sprucetips are in the air. Manes of hyssop and

lupine glitter in the sun.

If you have a minute to wander the ‘net, you should do yourself a favor and head over to Andrew David Cliburn’s gorgeous site KestrelHeart.  I love people who love their landscape and Andrew loves the high desert of Utah with fierce erudition.  His prose is jagged, unpredictable, original and pierced by the  glances of the inhuman.

And the dude writes poetry: I can count on one hand the men I know who have the fortitude to write poetry.  Also his photographs are beautiful. I’m not going to steal them off his site so you’ll have to go over there to see them.

With the great possibilities that the internet provides there is  the responsibility to use it, to take it up lest it be used against us.  As someone once said, and I believe it was the great poet W.S. Merwin, perhaps quoting someone else, if you do not use your gifts, whatever they may be,  they may turn against you.

My journey is downward, rhizomic. I am thrilled by roots and by humus and what comes back out of the dirt. Pottery sherds, bones, roses, worms, magma, water, rock. All tumble around beneath our feet until they are spit out for a moment near the surface. Soil seems to me to be a fluid, the constant rising and falling. Who was it who said Empedocles threw himself into Etna so as to finally rid himself of his retinue?

 

2 Replies to “A Jewel in the Net: Kestrel Heart”

  1. Every so often I am reminded that there are others out in the world bravely holding forth in the darkness. The web IS a place, a heimat, where the far flung & disparate can keep the lights trimmed and burning. I appreciate your enthusiasm for my project very much, it compels me onward.

    I am also enjoying getting to know this place, your gathering place. Wonderful perspectives and tremendous thoughtfulness.

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