I have been working on some memory pieces lately that will, at some point, be used in an extended piece I am currently working on – here are parts 1 and 2:
1.
I set fire to my bungalow-sized “burn pile” –
I followed protocol:
i. Beat wood with baseball bat.
ii. Call Fire Marshall for Ellsworth County
and inform him of my intentions
[affect the accent; it makes the cogs run
more smoothly].
iii. Lay ring of water around base of pile
[once in Winter
twice in Spring and Fall
thrice in Summer].
iv. Beat wood again – shoo escaped wildlife
to a safe distance across the pasture
– past the silo – into the soy.
v. Cut path into centre of pile with axe
[use chainsaw if functional (don’t forget to oil
blade before return)].
vi. Tie rag to 8-foot branch and dip in diesel
[see Jerry can in bed of work truck].
vii. Final check for wildlife and spreading hazards.
viii. All-clear: give signal to “big house”,
light rag, thrust into centre of pile
[use more diesel if wood is damp (diesel is cheap)]
ix. Monitor closely while your hard work burns.
Like I say, I followed protocol, like with every other
fire I had set while working as a ranch hand. This
time, however, I was serenaded by the sound of
juvenile birds, too young to escape the nest their
parents had built in my pile while it lay fallow,
burning to death; a chorus of shrill chirps getting
more and more frantic until a number of small pops
announced their explosive deaths. I pass it off as a
joke. It still makes me want to cry. I am a carnivore
and a hypocrite.
Baby birds don’t usually explode in Leckhampton,
but I can’t carry my axe on my shoulder any more,
or piss on the embers. The winds,however, relent.
Travel and experience cause inner conflict.
That t-shirt still smells like smoke.
2.
Drive out. Almost to Kanopolis. Stone’s throw from the geodesic centre of the USA … centre of nowhere. Middle of anywhere.
Pick out and hitch the cherry-picker to the work truck ball-hitch. Make sure the clasp locks. No runaway.
Drive it home; don’t bottom-it-out on the low road. Dip. Circular shadow on denim pocket. Past the junkyard, the scrub cedars and the grain co-op silos.
“Careful, you can drown in there – waves of wheat, currents of corn, rivers of rye and maelstroms of maize will lap the air out of your lungs should you fall in whilst the grain’s being siphoned off and loaded into sacks…”
Drive the gravel track around the big house, through the copse of trees – crunch to loam – back it up – round the trunks – the opposite of the opposite of the direction you think you want – don’t hit a thing – this thing’s hired – mind the wing!
Stop.
Unhitch.
Head into the limestone bowels via the service entrance. Mix the terps and linseed oil, thick and acrid in the sealed basement.
43 degree heat.
“Wind’s gettin’ up”.
Ascend the stairs – back into the air – climb into the basket – ascend – reach the beginning of the boards pressure-washed naked the day before and sun dried.
Don’t anger the hornets. Better gas that next week. There’s bats in these eaves.
Wind’s gettin’ up.
Paint on the mixture and move along. That hay-ring isn’t going to recondition itself. Lean out the basket and stand on one foot. Mustn’t leave an inch bare.
Wind’s gettin’ up.
70 mph gusts. Drop the brush. Watch it fall to a swaying earth. Hunker down. Sway. Cling on. Sway. Rush of silence. Sway. Ground’s on the same level as my gaze … I’m tipping. Tipping. Sway. Wind sure is gettin’ up. Tipping.
Deathfall.
.
.
.
… . . . . . . . . ……………
– leaden hand – reach the controls –
—Desend—
comfortable tunnels of vision and thought … crumble to the parched soil …
Come round.
Holler.
WALK
IT
OFF – get back up there or we’re docking your pay…
– – – – – Ascend – – – – –
FINISH:::
THE:::
JOB:::
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“Wind’s gettin’ up”.
immaturephilosophy 