The Ashley drying the house.  I sit by it with a purring kitten and a cup of lemon grass tea.  Grey and green.  Rain for the last two weeks.  The sunshine that made us long for cover now a nostalgic memory.  Days when I felt like Adam before the fall:  cultivating my garden, prospering. My response was fear and guilt.

The horses race around the pasture, the beat of their hooves shakes the ground.  The two billy goat kids moan quietly because of the rubber castrating rings I’ve just put on them.  I’m minding the store: the goats, the garden, the chickens, the fire, the laundry, the boy.  My mind spills venom.  Where are my plans and aspirations?

Psalm 131

Lord my heart is not haughty
Nor mine eyes lofty; neither
Do I exercise myself in great matters or in things too high for me.
Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother.
My soul is even as a weaned child.

1.

Midpoint of our years
Summer Solstice nears
Mothers giving birth
Sanctifying earth.

2.

Dawn and Dusk converge
In the sun’s ovoidal path.
Opium days
Like poppy buds engorged,
Violet velvet vulvae
Swell, slit, split, splash out
Orange-red radiance
Petals, pistils, stamens
Fingers, toes.

A lesson I want to teach myself as if a child: that which you want most–maple sugar, gum, great lovemaking, a baby, the ability to write–you cant get it by desiring.  Fate, the tide which brings and takes, is a sexual person, beautiful and proud.  She gives only of her own volition.  Insistent craving doesn’t attract gifts.  So turn your longing elsewhere and learn to do without, only then may it come, a surprise, a mystery, grace.  Its enemies are lust and satiation.

Last night at the dinner table drinking white wine in the wet sunswept yard and watching Jonah.  He’s in the field wrestling with his training-wheeled bike, kicking it, crying, spitting, calling it fucken asshole, finally abandoning it, going up the hill where Ezra rides the toy tractor.  He grabs it from Ezra, who struggles to hang on to it.  Jonah lifts it over his head and threatens to smash him with it.  Ezra goes back to the cabin where Jenny is riding the smallest car, rips it from her and starts hitting her.

Went up the tree tonight with Stan.  Still no human habitation in sight. The tree put on lots of new growth this year.  Tips no longer yellow-green but whitish-olive, still tender though. ¦The farm, my mistress, my passionate affair, returned after two years.  Tempestuous love-hate. It beguiles and tortures and surprises and overwhelms me. I would fight for it as for wife and child.

It’s been raining for 24 hours”finally.  The garden and the people were getting oversaturated with sunshine.  A new mood: cozy, melancholy, irritable, brooding succeeds the ecstasy of the last two weeks of May.

The sound of rain on the roof. Between sleep and waking.  An intersection of horizontal and vertical, the intertidal zone of the mind.  With eyes closed, the water of sleep and dream washes over it, softening and swelling, enlivening past and future.  Eyes open, the clarity of time, hard outlined form, things to do.

Every day closer to moving, to the new life.  Blossoms opening, deeper fragrance.  The light through the tulips on Purcell way near the college, lilacs on the table, japonical in the front yard, broom in front of Venice Bakery, hyacinths in Park and Tilford gardens, forgetmenots in Stanley park, daffodils on the farm, cherry blossoms on Nanaimo Drive, Huckleberry leaves turning from deep red to bright light green on the stump outside the door, skunk cabbage leaves in the cedar swamp, apple blossoms in bud on the Duchess.  I identify with the flowers: opening, coloring blooming, smiling, singing, shooting seed and fragrance.

Planted the garden in two days last week.  Five rows of corn, three rows of onions, five rows of carrots, two tripods of beans and a fenceful of beans and snowpeas and tomatoes, six hills of squash, two rows of parsnips, beets, turnips, radishes, cauliflowers, broccoli, spinach.  The mulch and the ditches worked beautifully to prepare the soil. Jonah and Drumas playing with the hose.  Jonah getting suntanned, golden haired and curly.  The experience of the garden”digging in the good brown dirt, mixing in manure, dropping in seeds, covering them over, row after row, under the sun and blue sky. The goats, sheep, stream, children.  I fear the jealousy of the gods and the envy of my neighbors.  I pray in thanksgiving next to Jonah’s bed.

Recording tapes at the MPC: Bach, Mozart.  Hours and hours of beauty.  Even the blue truck works.  Janet went to Seattle to see Jelstrup and tell him about the cured whiplash.  Last weekend she and I moved heavy furniture.  She’s no longer crippled.

Siddhartha, an easy book to patronize, reflects my polarities of feeling: restless searching and the serene content. There is time”the interval between  the Maying Festival and moving to the farm.  Classes are finishing, the marking load is light.  And so the weekends present moments”awakening this morning, in the bath this afternoon”whose sequel is  not predetermined, moments demanding choice.

In these moments guilt arises, or discomfort, or despair or a driving horny restlessness.  And then something is generated.  Tonight, the transplant project.  Before starting, that terrible feeling of uselessness, inertia, nothing’s worth doing, the futility of effort”stasis, ennui, accidie.  It only lasts a few minutes but seems like hours.

And then the act: getting out of bed, out of the tub, just the next step, feet on the floor, out of the bewitched circle, that brings release and energy.  The project emerges: going on a hike, washing the floor, writing a letter, making a chair.  It starts with a flurry and highballs until completion.

In the mirror
I see me.
How can the subject
Object be?

from Court Evidence, the Marx Farm Daily Record for 1972-1973 in Lund, British Columbia

January 28 1973

Cold and rainy. Janet discovered Rebecca dead in the barn, hanging by her neck in an eight inch hole in the partition between her stall and the grain Michael Friedman was storing there. In order to get her out, Steven had to hacksaw her horns. We decided not to butcher her and buried her under boughs and ferns on the adjoining Crown land. Went to Friedmans place to get eggs and met Ken Law who brought our grocery order from the coop in Vancouver. Went to Pihls to get Vance, Letitia Tracy and Kelly Faire to help us do up eleven chickens including Ajax the rooster. Vance chopped the heads off and gutted them, Kelly carried the carcasses to Steven, Janet, Ticia and Tracy who plucked. It took two and a half hours. Afterwards we had popcorn and hot chocolate in front of the fire.

January 29 1973

Warm snow slush. J and S worked in barn, J transferring wet grain to dry place, S fixing the plumbing leak in the sink upstairs, cleaning up mess John left, including bleach bottle half full of pee. Barn is now ready for new occupancy. Made huge pot of chicken soup with Ajax. Froze ten chickens, one to Vance. Ken, Debby and Maz came for dinner. Ken stayed over.

Friday February 2

Steven has interview at Manpower and is told he should leave the area to find work elsewhereSeth and Muriel write offering $1500 loan. Eight acre parcel of our land is listed at Marriette Agencies..

Thursday February 8

Kenneth informed us of his decision to move into the cabin, as a result of a Tarot reading the night before. He brings string and teaches Steven how to Macrame. Steven stops freaking out for a while¦Potato pancakes and parsnips for dinner. Mrs. Williams called and asks both Jan and Steven to substitute at school the next day. Melvin Marguilis and gang arrive in time for a party. Lou T. called saying they definitely want to buy the eight acre parcel¦Ken agrees to take care of Jonah while Steven and Jan go to school. Nick Valerie, Kenneth, Melvin, stay over¦

Sunday February 11

Clear morning, cloudy afternoon. S. picked brush, K. went along. J modeled for Fred. Jonah went to Nancy Crowther’s with Doreen. J and S went upstairs. K. cut the end of his finger off. J and S take him to hospital. Bleeding stops when Dr. Warriner looks at the cut. S and J and K buy ice cream at Knight’s Weekly News.

Monday February 12

Steven goes to dentist and gets spark plug wires replaced on truck. Goes looking for work at construction site and with Durling the surveyor. Janet gets notice of reinstatement on UIC and a check for $58. Jeff Chernove says Kirpal Singh is the answer. David Creek says Primal therapy is the answer. J, K, and S work on plans for Valentines party and discuss jealousy.

Wednesday February 14

J and S go to town early for appointment with Dr. Ryan, the psychiatrist, then to lawyer to sign contract and close sale of land with Lou and Kent. Kenneth stays with Jonah and cooks all day for Valentines party: chicken in milk, dahl, yogurt salad. Steven makes Valentines cheesecake. People arrive and make Valentines and paint cookies: Tony and Maureen, Ron and Anne, Ian and Maggie, David, Susan and Jessica, Laurie and David Creek. S and J and K and Jonah exchanged valentines. S and K played recorders.

Friday February 16

… Jonah gets baby aspirin bottle and eats 10. J and S take him to hospital where he’s made to barf, but no aspirins are found¦Late dinner. Jonah calls Kenneth “Kennie,” the first adult outside of “Nanet” and “Daddy” that he’s named.

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