Established Marvel : a Monk by Abbreviation

75. 'VISITATION' - The Native Poet, along John Street Woods; June, 1807. Recollected from memory.

'The true poet always has the advantage of sensuous reality over the false sentimental poet by setting forth as a real fact what the other aspires only to reach and SENTIMENTALITY here in writing is the offspring of retirement and science' and I thought to myself WHEW! I didn't want any of that - sentimental foppery being just what I hated the most - the faction of the wet-eye the moper the crier for God and his works the helpless the broken and those who can do NOTHING to advance themselves and their thought so to the rest of the world I said 'be damned' and meant each word of it too and it was Andrew Marvell who'd written in 'The Garden' - 'annihilating all that's made / to a green thought in a green shade' and then I looked up and saw two black men silently it seemed sawing a tree and for whatever reason I couldn't understand what they were doing until I realized the time and the place and saw they were servants or slaves at one of the advancing mansions along the way and they'd been out collecting wood for fires and stoves and their two carts seemed quite full but apparently they'd had one last opportunity at an attractive tree or a situation of a tree needing trim and so they were doing it as they closed the task and I went to them and said "Sirs sirs excuse me but what is this night and what day has it been?" and apparently my calling them Sirs had caused confusion for they seemed flustered and stepped back hurriedly and replied "we's only doin' what's the rightful task and so when y'ask us such a question we'not be unda'standin' what ya aksed us" and I said back "no - simple though it is I really want to know where am I" and they laughed and said "why's you'se here to be sure o'that and this is Master Henry Morton's wagon crew settlin' fo' this night - jes' we two nig'r's gittin wood" and I said "OK OK thanks for that" and knew I'd lost the game but still was hopefully sure of illusion only and not much else - for how was it I could be unattached to the fabric of both time and place and still inhabit both a lawn and a street together - these were things I did not know but wished for knowing.
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And then again I saw only the trees and the pathway which wagons and horses used - the itinerant walker such as myself between places going whether north or south or east or west had his vantage points aligned for in each direction there ran paths and waterways and the not exactly level land rose and fell with the same pace and movement as the waters which passed and here or there a broad vista stood out from some slight height while in other places the descent brought the path down to a hollow or a low spot collected with water and fens and bogs where people dwelt - tents and shacks and piles of things about and the closer to either shore one got the sloppier everything seemed to be as debris and belongings seemed scattered about for no one early on really had specific places to live or stay and the earliest of the property claimants always did have a rough time claiming their stakes and keeping what they claimed - outside of the small circle of land they actually DID inhabit - and everything else outside of that was constantly under discussion and up for grabs for there were as yet no rules or established formats for claimant and holder for those who simply passed through or along and those who settled in and the only things which made ownership were the buildings and homes one inhabited and the farm-fields which were cultivated but the waterways and low-spots and ponds and lakes where cattle roamed and wild things stayed all these were part of a strangely evolving common-weal for the benefit and use it seemed - early on at least - of anyone and all as traces still lingered of the indians and tribes which had just as recently been scoured and driven away themselves - yet it was their paths and their places far outside the walls and ports of the edged settlements which were still in flux - sunrise sunset winter and each other season bore with it the wild cock-crow of nature the uncorraled and loosened animal and everything else out on its own - including people - for no definitions were yet set as rule and law and statute and whatever came to be had best come to be only by establishing for itself itself alone and it was quite some time before real governance came to be or was recognized to be and that time - when it came - put a stop to much of this and activity was then structured and formed and limited and ruled - (and by this time) I stood OUT of time myself - as previous once before I'd written of John Street and all of that strange atmosphere and activity - and I shook myself back and said 'I really must retrieve and find anew all these things EVERY ONE and bring them forth to mankind NOW - before this present day we view wanes and fades away to nothing more than dream itself.'