A Strange Ochre Pool

 

You can still ski.  I seemed to catch it just right.  In the morning it snowed and then it turned to drizzle, just above freezing.  The snow on the trail was packed hard but soft enough after the rain to get some good speed on and I made it down to Sojourner Truth Park quickly.  I passed the lady I often pass who walks her greyhounds.  She is always so friendly.  Her dog is always so agitated.  Today she seemed to look at me to make sure I really said “hi.”

 

On the way back there was a guy who I’d passed heading north.  Now, returning south, he was right in front of me.  I could sense that I was gaining on him.  But I’d said I wanted to stop near the waterfall.  I liked the way the melted water had formed a strange ochre pool, revealing rock and earth.  I didn’t overtake him though, before I reached spot.  Behind me by fifty yards was another woman with a dog. 

 

Now the man was much further ahead, and I set out to catch up to him.  And by the shale cuts I went off to the side where the track was frozen and imagined myself blazing a new trail that I'd use in the future, there to the side.  The man, however remained the same distance he always was.  Was he going faster?  He stopped and looked once or twice.  Or was I going slower?  The woman behind me remained the same distance as well. 

Back home my copy of the Shu Jing, by old Kong Fuzi (aka Confucuis) was here.  I’ve read “The Analects” more than a few times over the years.  But the “Shujing” is less about aphorisms and more about the explanatory tales of dynastic glory and indignity, that was the imagined utopia of the Western Zhou.  This, other texts had been telling me over and over was where much of the thin accounting of that primordial time recorded.  I want nothing more than to go take a ninety-minute left turn into the toilet but I have one and then another call I need to get ready for. 

 

 

 

Monday, 03/01/21