The Arboretum is landlocked.

It does not contain the Ocean.

Lakes; and streams; and pools; and rain;

Waters, yes,

but not the Sea.

I am a traveler by foot, on inland paths, not one to unmoor and cast myself adrift.

Yet sometimes the barque is waiting,

and endless open emptiness

calls out for navigation.







At sea.

Not so much adrift,

as fighting the tide.

Having said that I could keep up a minimum pace, I now find that I can't.

Events have conspired to keep me out of the Arboretum.

Life is a little hard right now, but that's nothing new.

I'm in Detroit, (family matters), and clearing the schedule at work required overtime attention, leaving little energy for this space.

Compounding things, an administrative error deleted many of the supporting pages from earlier in the year, requiring reconstruction of the lost material. Since this means summoning thoughts out of season, it turns out to be harder than I imagined.

It does provide an opportunity to improve the mechanics of the page: anchors will be inserted, making the linkages between DMTree based pages more manageable, but it's a load of work at the wrong time.

Not as if there were a right time.

As long as Time obtains, progress is linked to loss.

Still, there are things to be done,

and in this case,

I must do them.







So I'm closed for renovation.

And that in more than literal sense.

There must be renewvation as well.

A little wisdom, perhaps, from the newer Holidays.

Where once the swelling of the Harvest, and preparation for constricting Winter, nowadays we say the end of Summer presages rebirth of concentration: back to school, or work, refocusing on whatever it was that Summer strayed from.



Summer is a sort of Ocean, but not boundless.

A bit of melancholy infects its further shore.

We would rather not return to the workaday,

but there is nowhere to remain.

Only a vagueness that grows chill.



I will summon from my soul

Cool, a breeze to blow me home.

I will do what's to be done.

What will come

Is what must come.








Oblique? Perhaps.

But bleak? I hope not too,

though Hope that's less than rational

goes by the name of

Faith.