Strategic placements.

How did we get here?
Boots stuck with mud
at the rim of the hole,
the burial place for growth.

In the dirt we put the dead.
In the dirt we plant the roots.
In the dirt they intertwine.
Life. Death. Swelling underneath the boot.

If the world has a heartbeat, it is the dirt. Underneath the skin of the earth, the dirt churns us alive. It keeps us growing. A heartbeat you can pick up and let slide between your fingertips. Letting the smell rest on the palm. The piney, rooted scent of earth.

Thump, thump.

The goodness comes from the ground. 
What we plant is what we see.
The sky drips the blood of the heart
and the rain wakes up the dirt
ready for Spring. 

As Apacha and I pull up to Frick, rain starts to pelt the windshield. I put the car in park and turn off the music so we can listen to the sound of the rain meeting our surroundings. Little drops move all around us. My car, our shelter. I look back at Apacha who is sitting up in the back seat looking out the window, eager to get outside. I sit for a second, pondering the situation. In one direction, the sky is charcoal colored, fading into a deeper gray. In the other, a pale yellow peeks through low hanging clouds. We will either get drenched or watch the sun birth from the clouds. Apacha begins to whimper in the back. And so the decision is made.

I step out of the car and look up to the sky. We are directly underneath the intersection of the rain and the sun. The drips run down my face and my body charges in this release from the sky. I open Apacha's door and he hops right out. The rain picks up as we head to the bench, but the sky over the section of the park where the bench is located is the pale yellow. Its color pulls us along. I observe many people starting to exit the park--the rain had shooed them away. But it feels so good on my face. The night before was spent inside a crowded restaurant navigating the crowd of bar patrons with pointed elbows. Here, now rain is creating all this space between the land and me. I let my body be as fluid as the rain and relax. I feel free.

I think back to a vivid memory back when I was eighteen or nineteen. I was at a friends house. It must of been spring--April or May. A group of us were sitting outside in fold out chairs and on a picnic table. The grill was fired and smoking. Suddenly, an urgent rain took over the backyard. Everyone ran inside for cover but my friend Brett and me. We stood up and squeezed our eyes shut and let the rain overtake our bodies. Its pelts stung the skin a bit, but it rejuvenated our beings. Our friends yelled at us from inside, calling us hippies and weirdos for staying out in the rain. We just laughed at them and started dancing. We hopped up on the picnic table and let our bodies move as quickly and as suddenly as the rain. After a while, we went inside and changed into dry clothes. But the rain stuck with us. The rest of the night, Brett and I kept talking about how refreshed we felt.

And I think this now, as I move through the park, the rain moving down my body, contouring my shape as it slips down my frame to meet the earth, the ground and feed the dirt. All this feeling of renewal is justified. Spring is here. This is the season of renewal and regrowth. The season of sprouting and spreading. The earth is reawaking from winter slumbers. She is ready to blossom and inspire. And so am I.

Apacha and I stay on the paved path today, as the hills are wet with sticky mud. As we walk, I notice holes dug into the earth on the hill to our left. Next to each of the holes are baby fir pines, ready to be planted. They are strategically placed along the already grown treeline. Throughout the walk, I will notice all these trees ready to be planted. It seems a little strange to me. I haven't really witnessed this before in the park--the pre-planning of trees. The strategic placement. All throughout out the park, trees lay on their sides, their roots tucked into a little bulb and covered with a canvas sack. This isn't natural. This is planned. The whole layout of the park has been thought out by somebody. The positioning of trees, the placement of benches, the clear cut of land that once was forest.

There they rest, pine poking dirt,
the nutrients of the leaves disintegrating into their needle skins 
their vertical limbs out of place, as they should be upward
racing towards the sun. But they are fallen. Better yet, placed. 
My boney fingers yearn to pick up their frames and root them into the earth,
slowly gathering the dirt for their growth. Where they belong.
Or do they?

Does nature belong where we place it? Does it need our guidance? Our hands? Our man made structures to help it grow up right? Or would it be better off without us, growing or dying within its own will?

We are here amongst it. We find our ways to coexist. It is strange to see evidence of this. We visit parks and admire the trees. We breath their oxygen. We take what we can and hopefully this is a mutual relationship. We feed these trees with the soil we (parks and recreation) churn.

The bench rests amongst all these preparations. Behind the bench are the mounds of stone, gravel, sand and mulch to sprinkle throughout the park. These are the piles that were covered by snow all winter. These are the piles Apacha and I had climbed and slid the past couple of months. Now they are ready to serve their purpose. They are ready to fertilize and cover the grounds of the park for the growth of the Spring.

 Everything has a purpose in this park. 
As I sit and scribble, this bench is serving its purpose. 
It holds my frame amongst its frame. 
As we walk the paths, 
the gravel intercepts the dirt from 
boots and paws.
The trees take the eyes with wonderment,
as I study their beauty and peel their bark
and sniff its scent like a curious dog. 

The sky is clear now, the pale yellow spread the horizon like the drip of a watercolor, 
slowly spreading yellow with each stroke. 
We keep moving under the freshly painted sun.
It blushes the cheek. 

The sun peeps through the lingering clouds and the dirt gulps up the rain. Apacha and I walk on, taking a back path through the woods and notice more and more of these holes ready for planting or already planted trees circled by stakes and chicken wire to make sure the babies grow upright.

Within shelter is a growing shelter.

I try to take a panorama of my boots walking--a failed attempt. But I like imperfection.
And that's what I think about nature,  I like the imperfections, the dented shapes, trees growing out of stumps. The hiccups. And here at the park, I don't see many. The trees stand tall in unison, shooting toward the sun, ready for renewal.

Her boots hit the gravel and suddenly she was covered in dirt.