upstairs

I got a bean bag chair for the garret. A craigslist special. Worth nothing and not all that comfortable, but it will work until I find something and then I can sell it again on craigslist for more. I am upstairs typing and the wireless connection is good. I am happy.

I can hear someone on the stairs. I wonder who it is.

I have very little furniture up here: a bookcase, a small end table and a mirror. And a small heater. No phone. No running water. Its just like living on Yale Creek only with electricity. I didn't mind living without electricity, I liked wood heat, cooking on a woodstove, and kerosene light is lovely, but I really didn't like carrying water uphill or down. It is one of those things that you can look back on and tell your children about. I know the exact weight of five gallons of water: 45 pounds. I lived in the woods. The actual, way out beyond where anybody else lives, woods. I lived in a beautiful cabin made of graduated logs, each hand-peeled pole smaller than the next, bottom to top, with paned windows and railed loft and porch, with a notched pole to climb into the second story. It was a beautiful place. I know I have posted this poem before, but it reminds me of the price of solitude.

yale creek

i strung pressed leaves and snake grass
on sewing thread
and hung them in the windows
to rattle in the wind
transparent in the light
filtering through the pines
i decorated around the old blood
running down the hand-peeled log wall
just to the right, inside the front door.
i never thought to wash it off -- that little bit of history--
proof that things had happened
without my consent
beyond my control
in that beautiful cabin
of wood
and blood
and handmade lace.