when the child ran into the field behind the house it was through a gap in the fence we cut the wires here then there because the field was ours that day the strange lens through which the house was visible distorted the scene as if seen through the domed glass fitted into rows of hotel doors the back of the house as seen from the field gave the child a sense of temporal distance he was seeing his childhood from his own future while knowing what he knew as a child the saying goes if I had known then what I know now but the inverse is true of a manner of knowing that is not useful in the pragmatic experience of adult life the unexplainable sanded off literature is filled with children who have access to magic things they will lose access to later they disappear it will feel like overnight though it is tide-like for a time until at last it does not return losing this access is necessary for survival how could anyone go on knowing what a child knows this child ran into the field and turned to look back at the house he scissored over the meadow arriving at the same place in the southeast corner near the trees there is a creek that runs at the base of the little bluff at the edge of the field he stopped in the same spot again and again he was troubled by something he felt there the ground seemed to speak through his feet we were cutting and cutting down the fence dragging its sharp and rusted fragments away as if there is an away a place where things that might hurt us can be sequestered and never encountered there would be no unknown unexplored scrap of earth in the field or the small woods or bluff or creek by the time the child was thirteen he kept weaving back to the same spot he called to us we walked to the back of the field he collapsed down into the grass and laid his hands flat he patted the surface that would not let him go he looked up to us with urgency sorrow and beseeching eyes he was three possibly four years old time is lost we can envision him as he was then we cannot calculate years we can hold an image or word or number but not all three so we held word and image he slapped the grass hard with his flat palms while meeting our eyes he said a baby was there in the grass he called the baby a she he hit the word in hard saying in she is in the grass he was filled with a nebulous dread a milky fog wisp of fear that he could not grasp but the grass he did grasp hard in his hands blades emerging out of the  spaces between his fingers in a field that was ours that day

 

 

 

 

I kept walking back to the pond I saw an object floating on the surface of the water I knew that it must be a leaf but in the wind it had the aspect of something struggling with the water trying to lift itself up from the pond of a sentient being that did not want to be in water it was troubling me every time I turned away to walk back up the curved hill toward the field behind the house I felt worried again by the shape on the other side of the pond it was not reachable its actual form was indiscernible being too far away from me it is not our pond but it is off our driveway we often walk to it and stop to look at it we are taking up too much space we have more than we need and more than we can take care of and more than we can afford to maintain it was a strange and lovely place to raise the children they love it the almost mystical-seeming wood where it slopes down and the field behind the house with its secrets the burrow where the ancient mother fox raised her last kits before she died how much will it hurt us to leave is it a fantasy that it will be better somewhere else but how can we be old here I keep going round and round from the field back down to the pond if the flailing form was not so far away I could disburden myself of my unease even if I knew there would be nothing I could do but I was burdened still by my not quite disbelief one is tempted to turn these things into symbols or signs if something is occurring only in the mind or if is it engaging with the actual and then translating it or even if it is only engaging with itself can it have meaning once it enters the realm of the actual is it just buffeting about the wing-like limbs of an oak leaf causing it to bob on the water in a way that mimics the pigeon we saw fall into the tar we were all surprised by the calm what seemed like indifference with which this tiny tragic end was met the pigeon meeting its bleak fate at the tar pits having made the mistake of flying too close to the shiny surface it mistook for something less treacherous something innocent no one working there reacted as the small group of visitors who happened to be there either held their breath or implored the staff to do something most with sorrow a few with a darker response these words replaced five hundred words on the virtues of silence versus sound on speaking instead of staying quiet there was no reaction to the pigeon that would have saved it the rangers turned away the argument for silence may be that some things are better left

 

 

 

 

we were cutting a path through the field to walk on through the tall weeds in warm weather it kept changing direction seen from the sky it did not make sense it was interrupting itself though it was uninterrupted there were no silences only drawn breaths there is a patch we let grow near the southeast corner weeds abound it is a place where things that need to hide can hide the path can be made by walking wearing down weeds to the bare earth but if you stop walking it will begin to fade from the sky you could watch it fading this proof of existence cannot be maintained for long cutting a path through the field as incoherent justification for changing the nature of the field to claim it as our own we disturb things hiding in the unmowed place as we pass at first we would make fires sometimes in the southeast corner standing around it in a circle with sticks making sparks shooting up to the sky from the sky the crows got to know us one remained above us in a tree at the edge of the field not moving did it have some particular feeling when all evidence of our fires disappeared back into earth we built a structure in the southeast corner then we tore it down now it is a footprint where a structure used to be as long as it existed living beings that needed to hide did hide beneath it we were imposing our will on the field we were changing the nature of the field there is evidence that we too were here we left behind stuffed animals buried in the field the ashes of our burned journals the fragments of a building that stood for a time just long enough to have been catalogued in the archived satellite images an insensible snaking path cut through the field visible from the sky it was a folly the structure the path follies as if they spelled out the word permanence or continuum it faded over time one cannot walk without interruption there are periods of drawn breath between exhalations the hidden things come out of hiding at night the field is an invisible space between one house and the next house between what is here now and what will be here between our being here and our being gone with each pass over the path the grass has grown again behind us we wear it down again we note each thing that altered in the time it took us to not circle but snake over the path an oak leaf was blown into the center of the path it was not there before a wing that was not being carried by ants was being carried by ants ambling over the dirt floating uncertainly on legs as if amazed by what has become of it or wondering what will become of it a rabbit does not move anything but its eye