Utopia Rock

"When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest. When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you."
– Merton, from March 11








March 15

Days come where, despite any downtrodden spring weather, the mind the soul the body will tell you, similar to seeking vitamins or water, that it is time be out on some trail where you will find rocks and sky and even leafless underbrush. There are the same series of trails here in the back coulees that I have walked for twenty some years. The area is all old farm and therefore lined by native trails that cut up along hillsides until they reach the ridgelines which overlook, in this part of the area anyway, the great and vast Mississippi watershed. Time moves on. Hikes do indeed look similar. Yesterday I parked at a small cul de sac which both invited walkers but warned off the parking of the car and dogs; I dare say that I played minor infractor, parked, took the dog up a wide old cattle trail through a nice dense forest up to my own favorite rock that I of in the coulee area. I might give it a name, but that can't matter. It has held us many times, much like a palm rising up from the mossy ridgeline, like a spiral with a giant head. You can just reach one jut out of a step at its side, position yourself, then leap up and you are standing ten feet up on the face of it looking out over neighborhood, river, bluffs to the backside. Is this enough for utopia? I sense there is only one left. The concerns of city has nearly taken our mental wherewithal. We pass such trailheads as these and hundreds of others as if ancient relics. Forget our imagination of those who lived right here and used these trails daily for pasture, some crops, and firewood. You sense that we have passed a spot where we recognize ourselves. Is that safe to say? That is all I want. I want to recognize the species. God, nature, eastern thought, it all has to have somethings in common: a mind interested in deeper engagement than the things we call modern and mechanical life. Merton, upon the life of brotherhood, still seeks it himself; I think it may be time for religious life.