Slick Scree

Starting with the leaves already. A few of the sumac are turning a beautiful orange. When a gust of wind sweeps across the ridge, a few leaves fall; and that clatter is a new sound, a seasonal sound. A certain brittleness. Late summer loveliness. That big rain has all the feeder creeks flowing. Going out this morning I had all the windows down and everything was so clean and quiet, that when I stopped, at the bottom of the hill, to shift out of four-wheel drive, the only thing I could hear was Low Gap Creek, rippling toward the beginning of Upper Twin. I sat there for a long time, watching butterflies. I usually leave an hour early, if I have an engagement, because I'm always getting side-tracked. They've completely torn up the access where Route 52 comes into Portsmouth at 2nd Street. A cop, directing traffic; and I had plenty of time to jump out of my vehicle and snip a couple of teasel seed-heads. The best stand of teasel I know is in that triangle of lost space where one road forks off to another. A piece of waste land. I wanted to study one of these seed-heads, before they stiffened into a carding tool, and I'm glad I did. Maybe you've never had a pet porcupine, but you have to be very careful how you stroke them. Teasel is like that. They're lovely plants, but, hell, I think the common thistle is quite attractive. Donkeys are the only animal I know that will eat thistles by choice. They have a way of curling their lips to avoid the prickles. Reading a book on Greek architecture, tracking down the use of the female form in pilasters, Modigliani was fond of them and carved several in free-standing stone, they're called, generically, Caryatides; the male form, and I didn't know this, are called Atlantes, usually a kind of Atlas. Northwest Indians and there's always a turtle in there somewhere. Whatever carries the world.