Scope

Anglo-Saxon for poet, from sceopen, to make. The house is creaking, drying, finally, in full sun. All morning I just drink coffee and watch the play of light. Birdsong. Dappled patterns, Bayou Light, sculling in close to the bank, gigging frogs as their eyes shine in reflection. Several hours had gone by and I was deep into reverie, in a state where background and foreground were diffused, when the sudden appearance of a shadow broke the plane, a red-tail hawk, circling the logging road. A lovely thing, she goes over twice, her shadow describing an arc across the ridge. Back inside, I'm reading straight through another volume of forgotten words. I mark some of them with a pencil dot. Small twigs and sticks, windfalls, gathered for kindling is called sprote-wood. Stoure is the cloud of dust stirred by the trample of feet. And I love thrum, for green and vigorous. I was using my yelf (dung-fork) just today. Black Cohosh shades out the competition, I was looking at a patch, 20 feet square, and nothing else grows there, the leaves completely cover the ground. Dave said that the price for the dried root is so low, that it doesn't pay to dig it. He still digs and dries Ginseng for which he says the market is good. I spent the day cross-referencing words and getting side-tracked, which is pretty normal for me. Surprised by nightfall. Looked up and it was dark. A hasty meal of beans on toast and tomatoes in balsamic.