Gully Walk

And so, after some days chasing language or responding to it, it seems right to go in search of water, especially a brook with its line of expression that shapes slowly what the land will say. Not far from my door, there is such a brook, and, even as the map says that the brook goes, finally, nowhere – it has no marked outlet and seems simply to go back to ground – it is expressive, shaping a little gully that is often rife with tracks. Always the muddy spots show passage of my big-footed brethren, but clearly, deer and foxes and coyotes and skunks and raccoons follow this way of water too. Though the gully is only around 20 feet deep, it has the feel of, it is, a secret little world only a few hundred feet from the trimmed lawns and still-lively gardens of our neighborhood.

On these fall days, it is also a collector of colors, so many that a listing would exhaust both writer and reader; they lie in contrast to the dark mud, and they float in lines or patchy quilts over the thin water, which both catches and reflects. And where the current holds sway, the tan sands show through and the sky reflects on itself. So much visual action that words are chased away, and I wonder, as I often do, at the painters who can catch the glimmerings of such a show; theirs is a talent I admire.

But no more words: here’s news from the gully, a few prints along the way of the day.

The way there

Water-face

Flow

Collection

Trees aspire

Grounded