Freshet

Freshet ~ L'assemblage by Michael Douglas Jones  ©2019

Original artwork SOLD / Gallery 322 

I am spent; you may not see me in my winter rest, thirty steps down the bank, off the burnt hill road, beyond the long line of scrub pines, where the split-rail remnants trail off, but there I am, blending back into the breath of soft soil. My last companion is a wake of vultures, the black angels of carrion come. I am the ribcage in the cornfield.

I know I had more to give, had I walked with you; I was held back by my doubts, not in you, but in me. On every road, I turned off before reaching the ridge. This day, my will is too weak to return to the road, so I rest here until spring.

Try as I might, when I return, I won’t remember this; the days will grow longer; I will walk these roads with you again, and one day, we will reach the ridge.

Until that day, I am the last deep snow melting into a warming soil ready to receive new seed. On that day, you shall see me as the revival of rivers in the floods of spring freshet.

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To Raise the Rising Moon

To Raise the Rising Moon ~ L'assemblage. ©MichaelDouglasJones 2019

Original artwork SOLD / Gallery 322 

    Raising the rising moon begins early, before the heat of sun holds it down. Commerce, with its attendant travelers, moves about the day, not noticing nature’s rising and receding, not noticing the receiving and returning rhythm of breath. It is not until the full moon rises into the night lighthouse that the weary ones, the waking ones, stop and watch for just a moment, to take in the wonder of the rising.

Rising the Moon (composite photograph)
Prints available: http://goo.gl/6BHVB

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The Books We Carry

The Books We Carry ~ L'assemblage ©MichaelDouglasJones 2019

Often, in the last days of our winter fever, we look back at the crooked path we’ve worn in the ending season, using that same past to plan the future.

Weighted down, but ready, we bring our bricks and baggage to pave a perfectly patterned road ahead. Then, as always, the earth shifts, cracks occur, and we start to stumble; yearly, wearily living along another winding path. Shift happens on this planet, we can’t plan it away. We can make scenarios, make contingencies, but we can’t make sure. There is simply no way to chart the changes that come along in a decade, so finally this year, I’m leaving my bricks behind, while I wander a bit. I still have much of my baggage, but I feel lighter already.

I still have the books I carry, in my head, in my heart; the books I wrote, the books I remembered, the books with my scribble in the margins; that is who I truly am. I am as you are, we are of the ancients. We are of the now, and the forevernow. These are the books we carry; this is who we are. We are the waking; taking our first full breath. We are the words we whisper when we turn the page.

Breathing in, we are the blending of all books, the scribbling pencil points, the overwhelmed annalists listening for the silence between crow caws and motorcars.

Breathing out, we are this that cannot be named.

Breathing in, we are the gathering of grace; the last scribes in the retinue, tallying the miracles, illuminating manuscripts of unseen symphonies from early morning mockingbirds.

Breathing out, we are this that cannot be named.

Breathing in, we are all that ever was. Breathing out, we are all that ever will be.