RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,159
(drowning in a richness : seeking dry shelter)
The meandering explorations of
a 'Me,' for example, took that me
in many directions. I was, truly,
all over the place, but, like that
bus driver a chapter or two back,
essentially going nowhere at the
same time. Life and language are
sometimes like that: So strange.
-
"Porcupines like to live alone,
but in Winter they sometimes
hole-up in long-snouted little
gangs inside hollow trees and
logs, in cavities made by cracks
in boulders, beneath piles of brush,
or under a front porch, sneaky as
thieves. Inside, in the damp and
ratty dark, fallen-out quills carpet
the floor. In spring, female
porcupines raise their babies in
these dens. A baby porcupine is
called a porcupette. There isn't
a word for a porcupine den, but
I suggest...a quiver.".....
-
"Quivers are, generally, a mess.
Porcupines are rodents, an order
of mammals that are, as a rule,
unkempt. The celebrated insouciance
of the honey badger, a weasel, is
nothing to the equanimity of the
porcupine, which are fully armed,
near blind, and imperturbable. They
leave their scat outside their front
door, piling up. They don't care who
sniffs them out." When I lived out
in Columbia Crossroads, PA, one day
my dog Billy (Super Bill! because he
was always chasing and outrunning
road-cars), came home whimpering,
with about 12 or 15 porcupine quills
stuck in his face, head, snout, etc. It
was truly a sight, and for one such
as me! I went to my neighbor-farmer's
house, for whom I also worked, and
said that day's equivalent of WTF!
(1971 or '72). I learned that, defensively,
under assault, attack, or any perceived
danger, a porcupine, as a defensive
maneuver - in the same way a skunk
emits stink - will hunch and eject
quills, almost as quill-missiles. Those
are what had gotten into Billy's face
area. Farmers thereabouts were used
to all this; had seen it a hundred times.
I was told to secure the dog in place,
and with good pliers, or vice grips,
pluck each quill, by yanking; a firm
pull, a solid hold. The dog will flinch,
(yes), but take it, realizing what was
going on. Then it was pointed out
the danger was, if left untended,
these same quills could eventually
work their way in, and affect the
brain/skull. Billy was already pretty
crazy anyway, as dogs go, but I
wished to risk nothing. The coolest
thing I remember is how, after each
yank, and removed quill, a little bead
of blood grew out on the dog's face, at
the exit hole. Billy flinched some, but
took it fine. We had an understanding.
-
"Porcupines have few predators,
aside from the sort of dog that's too
dunderheaded to know any better."
(Hey!)..."Porcupines, in their den,
aren't really hiding; they're just
staying snug, in homes they haven't
so much built as come by, like
squatters. Lovers of the Great
Indoors."
-
I had never been an indoorsy guy.
It was usually imperative for me
to be walking, on the way somewhere,
aimless, meandering, or whatever.
Grad school my ass, every smitten
NYU fool I'd see, on their endless
paths to credentials and further study
made me laugh, They were headed
straight for their own dead ends,
the cul de sac named Oblivion. I
knew that; didn't they? The next
50 years (all gone now!) were ahead
of both of us, and theirs already had
the straitjackets and the cuffs all
readied. Why?
-
Inside people's heads, I think all that
ancient stuff still rings, like a genetic
ghost-image inside of us. Still tribal?
You walk into a doctor's office or some
legal space or office, most anything,
and you're greeted by reproductions,
photographs, of what? Redwoods, old
woodland scenes, natives and elephants
and savannahs, gorges and waterways,
mountains and valleys, huts and dugouts.
And then, of course, you get the interior
decor of 'great tribal leader' types: elk
heads, deer, beaver, bear, fish, birds, you
name it, all mounted and taxiderm'd
and on display. Oh great King of the
Serengeti, I greet you! Can you feel
my innermost DNA stirring?
-
We make houses and domestications
now filled with the modern, and filled
with the past too. It is hard, this living
with masks - not the Covid kind, I
mean rather those tribal totems and
tribal shaman masks mounted, on
yonder wall. Like porcupine and
rodents, we leave our scat around,
piled up in every ghetto doorway
and elite mansion garage and trash
heap. We drown in our richness,
seeking dry shelter.
-
[Two last, interesting thoughts on
this subject: 'The New Urbanists,'
(architects), have been engaged in 'active
design,' trying to encourage, for instance,
the use of stairs, by making stairwells
wider and more brightly lit, and
piping music into them, while making
elevators slower.' And : 'Over several
millennia, humans have evolved from
an outdoor species into an indoor one.
We evolved in the African savannah's
wide-open expanses, intimate with
nature and seeking protection under
tree canopies. Our genetic hardwiring,
built over millennia, still craves this
connection to nature.'
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