Balloons as a base

Somewhere in our hearts, a tiny blacksmith beats the anvil and turns our troubles away. Somewhere the water is made pregnant with metals.

Oh, to be free of the many and constant blunders of living. Oh, just to love, after all, some face in the darkness. Just to know one thing through and through.

The Indians call him Windigo, which means cannibal. Anyone can become a windigo with just a bite. You fall off the bottom rung, outcast, Cain. There is always the potential for windigo. They are always with us, within us.

I walked down the Lake Superior shoreline. Down where the basalt and the jasper broke down to sand. I was looking for bigfoot, I admit, I sought the desolation I imagined he haunted. Impossible wild man.

On the far point, a family scattered over the rocks and I stopped in my tracks. What a sight I must have made, unsure of everything, walking along in plain sight.

I found an ATV trail through the birches. The wounded clumps of grass led deep into the forest primeval. A trio of bluejays hopped the trees beside me.

The country felt right.

I’d hear the roar of motors long before I saw the machines. It wouldn’t be hard to stay clear. It wouldn’t be hard to hide.

The country seemed right. There were animal trails through the pine spears, there were deep piles of tree-wrack. Everything seemed still and undisturbed though every human act played out beyond it.

I suddenly felt the weight of all my debts, everything that I owed to anybody, every obligation calling me away.

And if I were to never see another face:

Cease to exist:

Go wild:

:

How strange it would be to look up and see him just now.