Stovewood Scavenging

9.16

The Madrone groves at the far end of the Pasqule road, have become a refuge for me from the rancor and tumult of fan agitated overwrought world… here I am resolved into a sheltering canopy of green madrone leaves where scattered ribbons of sunlight fall, where a slight wind only deepens the stillness. My errand here is wholly transparent: one man, one truck, one pair of gloves tugging at the discarded red branches, retrieving them out of thickets of deerbrush and kitkitdizze– What the county crews left from road clearing. Scraps I come now to fetch for my winter's hearth. But just as much, and even more perhaps, I come to immerse myself in the deep serenity of these words, thankful such elemental labor still avails itself in this mechanized world.