Abbeying -- Re-reading Edward Abbey in New Jersey

My Princeton Patch readers know that the months since November have involved a constant quest for healing, for incorporating this new hip into my life -- especially my outdoor life in New Jersey.

There are times when circumstances prevent my being on the Towpath or at the Brigantine.  That's when I turn to my nature books, Edward Abbey above all.

The returned Muse brought me several Abbey poems -- here is one of them that turns out to be prophetic.  Wrens are nesting actually IN the walls of the house off Canal Road where I live.  Wrens who sing all day and much of the evening, especially if I have the Curtis Institute on Educational Television, especially if arias are the program...

in recuperant limbo

I’m re-reading Edward Abbey

trying to get to sources

of insistent activism

Abbey infects my process:

I’m along on one of his lost trips

plodding a desert floor

in a time of no primroses

and less water

rocks on all sides

some newly desert-varnished

cacti lurking

like porcupines or javelinas

it’s too hot out here

even for snakes

always, up ahead,

there is the thrumming of turbines

attached to Glen Canyon’s dam

Ed and I

listen

for canyon wrens

                                                            CAROLYN FOOTE EDELMANN

                                                            February 2012

“A great thirst is a great joy, when quenched in time.”  Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

on Abbey’s first descent

into Havasupai

as usual

he took along

too little water

drank sparingly

along the 14-mile descent

at well over ninety degrees

deep in dehydration

well on his way

to prostration

Abbey finally came to water

falling in:

“I soaked up moisture

through every pore

had no fear of drowning.

intended to drink it all”

I, too, have blundered

saving water

in a sweltering time

along rigorous rock ledges

on Hacklebarney’s trail

and elsewhere

envying Abbey’s

perpetual abandon

                                                                      CAROLYN FOOTE EDELMANN

                                                                        February 2012