Bob and Weave

Whitman: A Wrestler of Trees

44 Whitman: A Wrestler of Trees Why would an old man undress in the woods, summer gone, autumn swinging in the trees, a long year’s second childhood stinging the skin? He lies naked in the grass, crooked cane like a dead snake beside him, gnats in a swarming mist around him, his body moving in small ways like an animal’s to keep the flies off, eyes fixed points against the lazy motion of breeze and grass. He puts his cane to work and stands, slumped like a wounded bear making himself a target for the second time, one leg little more than dragging, a stillness deciding to move, having drawn into itself all that eyes and time in a single place can draw. Nestled into sapling thicket on the side of a hill, an old easy chair overlooks a small pond, the stuffing, like dandelion seeds, wandering on currents of air. 45 The old man sits, listens, elbows pressed into the chair’s flabby arms, backs of his knees hooked snugly over the cushion’s lip, naked feet twisted down into the cool, black dirt, chair slowly dematerializing beneath him, wind-thrown leaves catching flat against his foot before somersaulting away. Finally he grabs the slender bough of a young tree standing near him, grip returning grip, a contest between young men who still have something to prove, the muscles in his forearm distending once again, the young tree trembling down past its roots, the old man grappling with something in the earth beneath him that binds him to this time and place for one more day, to this world of what the eyes and ears can do, of what the fingers feel and make, of what the tongue will surely taste and say. He allows the tree to spring back to its upright stance. He looks around wildly, laughs like someone waking from a dream, 46 sings of the city of his youth, the forest of his old age. That’s why he comes to this place, comes naked, comes clean, comes with words whirling out of him like seeds. ...