Place Entry #3

I don't feel the cool of the cave's mouth today as I did last week. And I just heard a man's voice over a speaker. Probably someone from one of the factories across the river. It's amazing that such intrusive sounds travel to a solitary and beautiful place such as this. To think that when I'm not here to hear it, there is always the beeping and humming sounds of these riverside factories. There is always the roar of traffic on Route 28, just across the river. Sometimes I can make out the sound of just one big rig or some teenager's high-powered engine. I wonder about those people in those cars, on those roads, and in those factories. Right now, I have one thing in common with a woman sitting at her kitchen table in Creighton, a mile away from where I am at now. We can both hear the music chiming from a church. It is approximately 12:00pm.

I am again sitting with my back to the cave on this hill. Below me, I see a chipmunk scurry along a fallen tree limb. He is just a skittering stripe down there, preparing himself for the winter. The leaves here are still green except for the fallen ones that lay curved and brown on the forest floor. The sun is more modest this week compared to last week but the colors are still glorious and the insects still land their teeth on my skin. What is the difference between a bug and an insect? When I think of "bug", I think of rounded grey creatures that burrow beneath stones and roll their food and pieces of home along the ground, slow. Potato bugs. Ants. Dung beetles. Insects, in my mind, have wings. When I say "insect", it is like a beat of the wings. The word seems more elegant and long.

The rocky wall that surrounds the opening of the cave seems very loose. I can blindly place my hand on any part of the wall and pull a piece of it loose. I can't help but wonder what this wall would look like if I stayed here all day and dismantled all the loose rocks one-by-one. Huge slabs of rock would collapse, of course. The entrance of the cave would be smothered by fallen rocks. It is definitely interesting to realize what an intergral part all those small, loose rocks play in the formation and deformation of this wall. I just picked up a small chunk of rock that no doubt used to be a piece of this wall. It is small enough to fit in that tiny pointless pocket one can often find inside the pocket of a pair of jeans. With little effort, and the use of one hand, I broke it apart. Wow, how this cave will certainly change just by the touch of one hand! It's as easy as bringing a curious child who touches and touches. It's as easy as a hiker running his hand along the wall for balance. It's as easy as lovers pressing their bodies against it for support. It's as easy as gravity.

*

I left the threshold of the cave so that I can further explore the area surrounding the cave. The topography here is breath-taking. There are lower parts where a lot of tall, stalky weeds grow, but then there are random levels and hills with small trails leading up them. It is sometimes easy to differentiate between a trail made by an animal such a a deer and a trail made by a human. Humans have appendages that jut out horizontal to the ground. When we move through brush, we do not enter it head first, but legs, hands, and arms first. We trample, break, and push away. We are a wide, shattered path. The path of an animal is thin and fluid. They do trample and sway their necks side to side, but they bend the leaves and grass like calm water. I followed a path of bent grass, up a hill where I found little makeshift huts made of tires, branches, and rocks. I'm guessing some crafty kids make these little shelters for when they play paintball. I came across four or five of these and am sitting in one right now. The children or teenagers who built these are probably in school right now, or they should be. I wonder if I had stayed long enough, I'd see them today. Doubt it.

I do not know how to spell the sounds the crows make in the trees. They begin with a vowel, I suppose. Eh. Eahl.They all of a sudden started talking. Some sound raspier than others. I can't see a single one of them.

While walking to this shelter, I came across a black snake, almost four feet long. It stretched long across my path, it's mouth open. I just moved out of a house that is infested with these snakes. Their skins hang from the rafters in the basement. I touch him and he doesn't move. I grip him slightly and he slithers away, but towards me at the same time. His mouth open at me, stuck mid-thought, smelling me.

Here I am by myself, just a short walk away from the cave. This area is new to me despite being so close to a part with which I am already familiar. It isn't that surprising. Many people live next to neighbors whose homes they've never been in. I am in a wilderness that belongs to a youth, most likely boys, who see this as an out of the way haven for a somewhat dangerous sport. I admire their craft and how natural it seems for them to adopt this place as a memory--as a place they can easily slip into and then out of.

The wind blows in the canopy above me and a squirrel clings to a tree, its body horizontal to the ground. It talks to a squirrel somewhere behind me. I hear four different bird calls and I can't help but wonder why I am so silent.