Terpsichorean Oak

I've been working on this in short spurts for a while now, and consider it a fragment (possibly of a novel) at this point. I have a lot of ideas for where I want to take it, but am struggling with the transitions. It's not the way I usually write, and thus feels unnatural. I'd love any feedback on it.

Here goes:

They parked the sedan near a sleeping residence and ascended into the hills beyond. The two came here often in search of something that neither could define, nor entirely comprehend, only certain that it made each feel at one with the earth he knew. They moved along an animal trail by moonlight, without speaking - as if cautious to shelter some sacred state germinating in the air. It was an hour of steep uphill before reaching the crest, and they stood panting at the mouth of the meadow and peered down at the forested expanse below, to the valley beyond freckled by orange lamplight and stained by the blurred whites and reds of crowded motorways. They stepped into the buttress of a sprawling oak, and came to rest on a limb as the fog summited the mountains adjacent. It roiled down in gaseous waves from altitude and tumbled softly as falling plumes, layering in the delicately bowled plane of the city basin. Before long the lamplights were drowned, only vaguely apparent through the mist as waning orbs of distant neon, and each adolescent gave his best to ignore the white noise, manufacturing in his mind a time gone before their conception, or their father’s, or their father’s father’s.

“That oak, she’s a dancing lady,” the slighter observed from his perch, disrupting the silence with a measured quiver. And the greater saw her too, gnarled limbs careening somehow gracefully down the meadow’s slope like the tormented silhouette of a Degas dancer.

They dove from their perches, tumbling through the freshly dewed meadow, enveloped in the rich scent of oak decay and moist soil, joyful, and eager to see her closer. But their sentiments changed abruptly to find her foliage gone, replaced by parasitic constrictors in the charming guise of mistletoe and scallop-leaved sumac. Her branches creaked precariously under their weight, laboring to harbor their bodies, and equally affected, awash in the sensitivity which was cultivated in the cold and fog, a mood between them was conjured that bound their minds as one. The slighter remarked it ironic that she stood skeletal, wrecked by a yuletide novelty. That, in her frail state, she still carried them with her, and the burden they brought made her weaker still. The metaphor needn’t be extended into open air, for both recognized it.

Moved, vulnerable in the atmosphere, the greater spoke for first and last about his mother, and about the helplessness he felt for her. Five years removed from their courtship, she continued to pay the bill for a past lover’s telephone, and painstakingly manicured the showroom of his father’s business, despite his indifference to her sentiments and the divorce it incurred twelve years prior. She delusioned such acts of selflessness would grant her entry at the gates, or at least absolve her for the failures made in each past relation. She voiced good intentions, and they were sincere - she longed for the forgiving embrace, for the expansion of family and friendship, for the great swell of humility and thanks following the release of pride on both sides. She invested herself entirely in it, and yielded no return but isolation and confusion. But he knew the roots were deeper still. He knew, even if she did not, that in reality she concocted excuses, blaming circumstance more than once, constructing grandiose obstacles to disguise her fear of independence, and in her mind, if the burden of their company ultimately killed her, she might die a martyr.

The Sounder

I was on two knees,
hands grasping needles
of pine and silt, when
I saw the sun eclipsed
by a primordial silhouette
The sounder entire
had come to me -
boars, sows, and
striped progeny -
descending in numbers
towards the gorge,
and diverging around me
like a pierced rivulet
But the three behind
halted ten feet beyond
with eyes straining,
frantic to reveal me,
and footsteps unsure -
as if suddenly aware
of their penultimate
miscalculation
and pleading
for mercy

- Just another poem about boars. -

The Creek

He walked out along the creek for a while.

Its water clear as glass; its currents converging and diverging to create scars upon its trembling surface. He placed each step carefully - not to disturb the water and cloud it. He had walked for three miles before reaching the treefall. The bark had sloughed off in great heaps now growing moss, and he could smell the tree’s decay along the banks. Just below, the creek came over a boulder and passed through the air a few feet before crashing back upon itself, forming a small pool where larval salamanders crept along the silt with their feathery gills bellowing. He recalled the poem:

My love said she would marry only me

and Jove himself could not make her care,

for what women say to lovers, you’ll agree,

one writes on running water or air

A log from the felled tree rested diagonally there, one end rooted in the pool and the other against the boulder preceding it. He lay down on it, the bark touching his bare stomach, and cupped his hands against the falling water to wash his face and drink. Then he turned over and lay on his back, his arms dangling at either side with fingertips grazing the pool’s surface; eyes to the cloudless sky, bordered by foliate black. He considered how long it would be before they found him, accounting for each variable as in an equation, and concluded they might not at all. Any intention he had of leaving was gone then.

Back again...

It's been quite a while since I've logged in here. I've been distracted by traveling, and also haven't been writing as much.
I thought at first my lack of writing might be a result of a lack of inspiration, but after reading through my past writings here I don't think that's the case. When I started this blog, I approached it with a fledgling's enthusiasm. I didn't care about what I wrote or how relevant or good it was - I just wanted to spew. I was enlivened by it.
Now, I feel it's much more sacred. I can't decide if that's for better or worse. Regardless, I'm more selective about writing now. More selective about what I want to write about, about the content, the context.

Anyway, I don't intend to go away for this long again. It was nice to read everyone's blogs and catch up. The holy trinity (you know who you are) has been productive.

Also, I started a tumblr: www.royarthurblodgett.tumblr.com

Bottle Half Buried

As he ducked under a branch,
it poured into his field of vision
There was a bottle half buried,
with a tapered neck protruding,
as from an earthen womb,
beyond the living forest floor
His mind flooded then
with the potential presented
That young lovers may have
slipped away unnoticed,
sharing between them its contents
Blood sweating in drunkenness
beneath the trees, the stars,
the hovering drone of fireflies...

Tuskbeast

He recognized the gathering of plants
as one remembers the burner of a stove,
but the nettles did not sting in daytime;
their acids absorbed in wool each night
At least his instincts told him so

He stood in the disarmed leaves,
watching as the dog wallowed in a rut
He closed his eyes and the ground cast aside;
each heave revealed a flash of cracked ivory,
a porcine snort, and a wrinkling snout

The dog wallowed still
frantic to place their wildness upon her;
she might once again be a wolf
And he considered:
Where did the tuskbeast slumber?

Only Segments

I remember only segments of the dream, but it's enough.
We were walking down a city street. It was nightfall. We were arguing about something, but already I felt defeated. At once there was a huge, dark, wooden structure with a windmill before us. I gasped at it's presentation. It was of the aesthetic I favored. But quickly I turned on it, and became annoyed when you wanted to go inside. It had changed now. Suddenly it was modern in presentation, with a black metal clock ticking on it's forward face. Something you'd see at a strip mall back in the States. And there were lines sectioned and a glass admission booth at the top of its steps. You bounded away for them, and I let out an exasperated remark (I know not what) before following. Inside was empty. The escalator hall looked like an airport at midday, but without people anywhere. There were no others. You jumped up onto an escalator climbing upward. I struggled after you, on an escalator adjacent but bound for the same direction. I was on my knees - so frustrated. I yowled and punched the near-mirror-finish of the metal siding. It warped my reflection grotesquely, and I regretted it immediately. Then I was running to keep up with you as ran down a hotel hall. I was calling out for you to just slow down. I wanted to talk to you. But you were babbling, saying nothing, as loud as you could, and plugging your ears with your fingers so as not to hear me as you skipped ahead.

It's much easier to understand now that I've read it in my own words.
I can't tell if that offers any comfort.