Still Spinning

The kind of moisture that is less in the air than the air in it.

The kind of clouds that are less in the sky than the sky in them.

To run then, in these things, and they in you.

Muddy in parts. Deer out on the trail. Five of them and they don't scatter easily this time. When they do it is suddenly and decisively; one cannot feel but humbled by what must for them have been a lethargic effort. But they are gone quickly, bounding.

And I, shuffling.

The river is on the left and then the right. There is a stick hanging above its center, spinning. I pause, then come to a full stop. Hanging, but not from any visible thing, and ten feet at least from the next lowest branch. Levitating, then? No. There must be something thing yet strong, connecting this lone branch to those above - only I can't make it out.

It spins still and I think idly that perhaps this is just magic, witchcraft of some sort. Perhaps I've stumbled near some dark place, where the laws of gravity are flagrantly violated. My imagination goes all about, as it does, as it always has done, since my earliest youth.

There is nothing to be done though; it's too far.

Out then, out from the trail, across the railroad tracks. Several trees are spray painted with "KEEP OUT" in various colors. I ascend the nearby dirt road only a little further then, put off by these things, and an unrelated desire to see what exists the opposite way.

I find a wet phonebook with an ad for the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, now (then?) on DVD. Two large ducks seem put off by my presence, and so I retreat.

Heading back on the gravel, rather than the trail. I desire to open the throttle a little, and do so.

To the right, the scent of agricultural putrefaction. I spit compulsively, but the taste is not so easily expelled.

Town, again, and wandering just a little bit more. Some people are out walking and I wave. Cars drive by and I lament my black attire. I hadn't planned on.... anything, really. But certainly not so long a jaunt as would keep me after dark.

There are evenings, though, which inevitably become nights, where a curious mind and able feet conspire to innervate wanderlust.

Sometimes the branch just spins.