WEBVTT

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"Three, there are 76 species
of rare and endangered plants

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in this forest, Mingan Island
moonwort, kidney-leaved violet,

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fringed onion,
maidenhair spleenwort.

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And I know them all, each in
both its flowering and dormant

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state.

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Most of them prefer the damp,
dark depths of the last corners

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of old growth up here.

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Though others prefer
the ashes of a new fire

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and appear only every
200 years or so.

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Still others seek the highest,
windiest, most precarious

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existences possible,
curled up in tiny cliffs

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at the Spartan
tops of mountains,

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seeking brief moisture from
the slow sun glistening

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trickle of glaciers.

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I know all of them,
and I watch carefully

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as I walk, with a log across
my back across both shoulders,

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[AUDIO OUT] avoid
those 76 species,

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whenever I'm fortunate
en-- fortunate enough

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to find any of them in the
woods where I'm working.

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They say the list is growing
by a dozen or so each year.

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They say, before
it's all over, there

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won't be anything but
fire ants and dandelions.

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They say, that is my old life.

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This is my new
one, my newest one.

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This one feels different,
more permanent.

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Still, the old one or
old ones try to return.

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My right side stronger than my
left, so that I use it more.

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By the end of the day, it's
more fatigued than the left,

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and it feels,
sometimes, as if I'm

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being turned into a corkscrew.

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And because of this
slight imbalance,

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accumulated and
manifested over time,

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my steps take on a
torque that threatens

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to screw me down deeper
and deeper into the ground,

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like the diamond drill bits I'd
fastened to the end of the pipe

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string when I worked
in the oil fields.

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And late in the day, I
find myself, once again,

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daydreaming about
those buried landscapes

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and other hidden and
invisible things--

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a midnight run to town with
four gleaming, sweet-smelling,

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large logs--

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hundred-inch lengths of course,
and each one weighing several

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pounds--

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a cold night,
occasional star showers,

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pulsings of northern
lights, sky electricity,

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coyote yappings on
the outskirts of town,

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a tarp thrown over the back
of my truck to hide the logs.

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One in one logger's truck,
another in his neighbor's truck,

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so silent--

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they will think it is a strange
dream when they look out

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in the morning and see the
gift trees, the massive logs,

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but when they go
out to touch them,

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they will be unable
to deny the reality--

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the third log into the back of
yet another sleeping logger's

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truck, and the fourth one in the
front yard of the mill itself,

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standing on end, as if
it grew there overnight.

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Home, then, to my wife and
children and the pursuit

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of peace and balance.

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In the winter, Hope and I
sleep beneath the skins,

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the hides of deer and
elk from this valley.

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There's an older lady in town
who works on plow horses,

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gives them rub-downs, massages,
hoist their hips and shoulders

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back into place
when they pop out.

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She says, they're
easier to work with,

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that a horse won't
tense up and resist you,

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when you press or lean
in against its muscles.

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And when my back gets way
out of line, I go visit her,

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and she works on it.

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I lie there on her
table by the wood stove

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while she grinds her elbow
and knee into certain pressure

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points, and she
pulls and twists,

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trying to smooth it
all back into place.

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And she uses a machine
she calls Sparky, too,

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which I've never seen, as
she uses it only on my back.

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It sends jolts of electricity
deep into my muscles,

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which she says are but
electrical fibers, like cables,

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conduits for electricity, and
the sound that Sparky makes,

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as she fires round after
round of electricity into me--

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my legs and arms twitching
like some laboratory frogs--

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is like that of a staple gun.

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And sometimes, I
imagine that it is--

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that she is piecing
me back together,

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that she is pausing, choosing,
and selecting which treatments

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to use on me that day, so that
I can go back out into the woods

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and choose and select
which would take out

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and send to the faraway mills,
who will then send the logs to.

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We're all still
connected up here.

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Some of the connections
are in threads, in tatters,

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tenuous but there's still
a net of connectivity,

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through which magic passes.

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Whenever a new car or
truck enters the valley,

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I run and hide.

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I scramble to the top of a hill
and watch through the trees

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as it passes.

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They can never get me.

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They would have to
get the land itself.

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The scent of sweat, of
fern, of hot saw blade,

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boot leather, damp bark--

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I suck these things in like
some starving creature.

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All the books in my
house now sit motionless

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and unexamined in their
shells, like the photos

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of dead relatives, dearly
loved and deeply missed.

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Sometimes, I pull them
down, touch the spines, even

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say their names
aloud, as one would

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the name of one's mother, mom,
or one's grandmother, grandma.

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But then, I go back
out into the woods.

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Once, carrying a log
across a frozen pond,

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I punched through the ice
and fell in up to my chest.

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The cold water was such
a shock to my lungs

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that I could barely breathe.

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And I had to drop the
log and skitter out, then

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build a quick fire to warm up.

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The heater in my old
truck doesn't work.

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Some days, many days,
it feels like two steps

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forward and two steps
back, as the land

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continues to carve and
scribe us at its own pace.

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And now, when I take
my pickup to the mill

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and offload my logs next to
the millions of board feet

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that are streaming
through it like diarrhea

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through a bloated pigs
butt in the feedlot,

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what difference do I
think it will make?

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How does my fantasy
stand up there

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under the broad
examination of reality?

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In protest, I haul the
logs more slowly than ever.

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In protest, I take
more time with them.

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I touch them, smell them.

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I tie the best
ones to strangers.

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Sometimes, I sit down and read
the cross section of each log,

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counting the growth rings.

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Here is where one seedling
grew fast, seeking light,

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struggling for co-dominance.

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Here is where it
reached the canopy

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and was then able to put more of
its energy into girth and width,

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rather than height, stability.

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Here, this growth ring
is the drought year, then

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the succession of warm,
wet, growing years.

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Here, the next band of rings
is where the low intensity fire

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crept through and around the
forest, scorching the edges of,

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but not consuming the tree.

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I read each of the
logs in this manner,

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as if reading the
pages of some book.

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Maybe someday, I will
go back to books.

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Maybe someday, I will be
drawn to submerge back

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into the vanished
or invisible world,

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and will live and
breathe theory,

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and maybe, Hope will
start painting again.

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But right now, I
am hauling logs,

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and she is gardening, raking
the loose earth with tools,

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though other times
with her bare hands.

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And it feels like
we are falling,

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and as if we are starving, and
as if I must keep protesting,

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must keep hauling logs.

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We try not to buy
anything anymore,

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especially nothing made of wood.

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It's all such utter flimsy shit.

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One touch, one stress upon it,
and it all splinters to hell.

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A hammer, or ax handle, a wooden
stepladder, a chest of drawers--

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it is all such hollow
shit, and we are starving.

00:08:06.560 --> 00:08:10.680 align:middle line:90%


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Before I burned out in that
third life, I was a sizzle.

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I remember awakening each
morning to some burning smell

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within me, scorched metal
against metal, manatees,

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ivory-billed woodpeckers,
whales, wolves, bears, bison--

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I burned for it all
and did so gladly.

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The forest loves its fires.

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The reason I think I left
the second life, left art,

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left storytelling was because
it had become so safe,

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so submerged.

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It wasn't radical enough.

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They say most people start
out being radical when they're

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young, and then gravitate
toward moderation in middle age,

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and then beyond moderation
to the excesses of the right.

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But for me, it has been
the opposite, as if

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the land itself appears
inverted, mysterious, even

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magical, turning humans
and all else inside

00:09:03.480 --> 00:09:07.920 align:middle line:84%
out in constant turmoil,
constant revolution.

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We, all painters and writers,
don't want to be political.

00:09:12.690 --> 00:09:17.820 align:middle line:84%
We want to be pure and artistic,
but we all know, too, I think,

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that we're not up to the task.

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What story, what
painting does one

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offer up to refute
Bosnia, Somalia,

00:09:25.380 --> 00:09:31.650 align:middle line:84%
the Holocaust, Chechnya, China,
Afghanistan, or Washington DC?

00:09:31.650 --> 00:09:33.990 align:middle line:84%
What story or painting
does one offer up

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or create and counterbalance
the ever increasing sum

00:09:37.590 --> 00:09:39.480 align:middle line:90%
of our destructions?

00:09:39.480 --> 00:09:42.240 align:middle line:84%
How does one keep
up with the pace?

00:09:42.240 --> 00:09:45.120 align:middle line:84%
Not even the best among
us are up to this task,

00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:46.650 align:middle line:90%
though each tries.

00:09:46.650 --> 00:09:49.260 align:middle line:84%
Like weak and mortal
wood under stress,

00:09:49.260 --> 00:09:54.030 align:middle line:84%
we splinter and try
to act, create, heal.

00:09:54.030 --> 00:09:58.740 align:middle line:84%
Some of us fall out and write
letters to Congress, not novels.

00:09:58.740 --> 00:10:00.660 align:middle line:84%
Other-- others of
us write songs,

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but they are frayed by stress
and the imbalance of the fight.

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Some of us raise children.

00:10:06.360 --> 00:10:08.590 align:middle line:90%
Others raise gardens.

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Some of us hide
deep in the woods

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and learn the names of
the vanishing things

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in silent, stubborn protest.

00:10:14.880 --> 00:10:17.540 align:middle line:90%


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I want to shock and
offend hauling logs.

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My moderation seems
obscene in the face

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of what is going on on this
landscape and in this country--

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the things, the misery
for which this country

00:10:30.950 --> 00:10:33.830 align:middle line:84%
is so much the source, rather
than a source of healing

00:10:33.830 --> 00:10:36.020 align:middle line:90%
or compassion.

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Paint me a picture or tell
me a story as beautiful

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as other things in the
world today are terrible.

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If such stories and
paintings are out there,

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I'm not seeing them.

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I do not fault our artists for
failing to keep up with or hold

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in check the world's terrors.

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These terrors are only
a phase, like a fire

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sweeping across the land.

00:10:58.670 --> 00:11:02.180 align:middle line:90%
Rampant beauty will return.

00:11:02.180 --> 00:11:04.730 align:middle line:84%
In the meantime,
activists blink on and off

00:11:04.730 --> 00:11:09.170 align:middle line:84%
like fireflies made drowsy
over pesticide meadows.

00:11:09.170 --> 00:11:14.360 align:middle line:84%
Activism is becoming the shell,
the husk of where art once was.

00:11:14.360 --> 00:11:18.050 align:middle line:84%
You may see one of them chained
to a gate, protesting yet

00:11:18.050 --> 00:11:21.440 align:middle line:84%
another Senate spawned clear
cut and think the activist

00:11:21.440 --> 00:11:23.120 align:middle line:90%
is against something.

00:11:23.120 --> 00:11:25.370 align:middle line:84%
But the activist
is for something,

00:11:25.370 --> 00:11:27.830 align:middle line:90%
as artists used to be.

00:11:27.830 --> 00:11:30.890 align:middle line:84%
The activist is for a
real and physical thing,

00:11:30.890 --> 00:11:34.040 align:middle line:84%
as the artist was once
for the metaphorical.

00:11:34.040 --> 00:11:37.550 align:middle line:84%
The activist, or
brittle husk of artist,

00:11:37.550 --> 00:11:42.350 align:middle line:84%
is for life, for sensations,
for senses deeply touched,

00:11:42.350 --> 00:11:46.700 align:middle line:84%
not in the imagination,
but in reality.

00:11:46.700 --> 00:11:49.280 align:middle line:84%
The activist is the
emergency room doctor,

00:11:49.280 --> 00:11:53.000 align:middle line:84%
trying to perform critical
surgery on the artist.

00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:56.300 align:middle line:84%
The activist is
the artist's ashes,

00:11:56.300 --> 00:11:58.580 align:middle line:84%
and what awaits the
activist's ashes?

00:11:58.580 --> 00:12:00.130 align:middle line:90%
Peace?"

00:12:00.130 --> 00:12:01.000 align:middle line:90%