Slowdown in rush

Alison Moore, Artist in Residence

Rush Ghost Town, Buffalo National River

I’ve never met a place I didn’t leave. No, I wasn’t raised as an army brat but came from a long line of vagabonds. A gypsy with a vintage trailer, I always called the road home, no time for gardens, but in this, my sixty-ninth year, I’ve thought a lot about a story I heard or read once, about someone coming across an aboriginal man sitting in the middle of a path. The person who came upon him asked, “Why are you sitting here?” to which the sitter answered, “I’m waiting for my soul to catch up
to me.”

After all my years in flat-out, hopeful travel I find myself bending to a sitting position. Lucky for me the stars aligned along with Jupiter and Saturn on the winter solstice; I live here now. At least for a while. And yes, I came here to write, but first things must come first.

The stewards of this farm, David and Donna, are teaching me. This is where, despite my initial awkwardness, I’m learning to tend to things, find the daily offering the hens leave in their nests, pull carrots from the fertile soil, snip the spinach and broccoli and kale in the right places. In a few days, the plants regenerate; new shoots thrust from the stalks. We dig up the dahlia bulbs, wash and stash them away until spring. All of these living things keep growing, reproducing, no matter the weather, dark days and drought. It will rain again. The sun surely shines even behind the clouds after a killing frost. I suspect new paradigms for poetry and prose can take root in the midst of such plenty. The trick is to learn how to wait.

This is the kind of education I’ve needed for a long time--to get an inkling of the mystery of creativity in general and in the process discover the plot for whatever garden I can be. Words come slowly from deeply planted seeds and need to be harvested at the right time. Impatience doesn’t make anything grow faster. You’d think I’d know that by now.

It takes some time to settle in. Part of the process is beginning each day with a walk in the woods where winter has revealed the contours of the hills, greeting the goats and sheep in their pastures along the way, making a pilgrimage to Clabber Creek where it joins with Bluejohn on its way to the ghost town of Rush and the Buffalo. This is part of slowing down. Noticing things. Steeping myself in the Ozarks, one baby step at a time. 

In addition to solitude, my first week here I found community. Neighbors came to build the solstice pyre—the men hauled logs while the women made an effigy, a coronavirus crown to be consumed by fire. In the following week before the solstice I wrote a poem as a kind of invocation for the ceremony. There was a lot to let go of, or at least try to: grief, loss in all its forms and formulations. Just after sunset on December 21, we stood in awe of what we’d made, as a column of flame roared toward heaven, fueled by our petitions, confessions, and prayers. Too hot to be near at first, we came in closer gradually as it burned down. How soon it turns to ash. 

And how quickly this place is becoming home. The dogs don’t bark at me now; the goats hold my gaze. My pen scratches across a blank page, filling it with writing, a map that has a place that says, “You Are Here.” It may be too soon to say so, but I swear I can feel my very own soul catching up with me.