A CUT PASTURE IS RAKED AND STACKED BY THE HANDS OF A MAN WHO IS NOT A FARMER; AT SOME POINT IN THE STACKING, HE PLACES AN OX BONE NEEDLE WITHIN.

[1]

today my hands do the calisthenics
to move the pitchfork
to stack the pile

over and over
the same thing
but different every time

Monet at Giverny:
“Happy are the young people who believe that it is easy.”

labor and the land
there is something to that
that something is only through the eyes of commerce
that something may be something
only with one’s hands
which are only material after all
or something about how all things are seen and felt

and if someday you are
spoiled and ungrateful
then it is a luxury
I built for you

[2]

today my hands do the calisthenics
to move the pitchfork
to stack the pile

over and over
the same thing
but altered every time

Thoreau at Walden:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

labor and the land
there is something to that
that something I am searching for
that something may be something
so elusive
or something possible but improbable

I could spend all day toiling in the field
I will never find you here
because I only find myself everywhere

[3]

today my hands do the calisthenics
to move the pitchfork
to stack the pile

over and over
the same thing
but deviating every time

Again Monet at Giverny:

“I’m enjoying the most perfect tranquillity, free from all worries, and in consequence would like to stay this way forever, in a peaceful corner of the countryside like this”

labor and the land
there is something to that
that something may be thinking that something may be something about thought
or something about not thinking
or losing a thought

I am
thinking thinking thinking....nothing nothing nothing...
something something something...
gone away forever...

[4]

today my hands do the calisthenics
to move the pitchfork
to stack the pile

over and over
the same thing
but changed every time

Hesiod in Theogony:
“(ll. 26-28) `Shepherds of the wilderness, wretched things of shame, mere bellies, we know how to speak many false things as though they were true; but we know, when we will, to utter true things.”

labor and the land
there is something to that
that something may be truth
that something may be something
better than the truth
or something beyond the truth

the truth is that
I rake and fork the field
while all around the grasshoppers
fuck in the grass

[5]

today my hands do the calisthenics
to move the pitchfork
to stack the pile

over and over
the same thing
but varied every time

Again Thoreau at Walden:
“I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”

labor and the land
there is something to that
that something may be the seemingly lightest something
that something may be something
of overwhelming quantity
the weight of it
or something of the heat generating gaps between it and something else

the something that is
the nothing
the negative space between them
the absence
makes the heat possible

[6]

today my hands do the calisthenics
to move the pitchfork
to stack the pile

over and over
the same thing
but diversified every time

Again Hesiod in Theogony:
- “For when the gods and mortal men fell to disputingat Mekone, Prometheus, acting in a spirit of kindness,
divided and dished up a great ox, deceiving the mind of Zeus.
On the one side he put the flesh and the rich and fat inner parts
hidden under the skin, concealed in the paunch of the ox;
on the other side he put the ox’s white bones, arranging them
well with skillful deception, concealed in silvery fat.”

labor and the land
there is something to that
that something may be being lost
that something may be something
hidden or missing
or something that has disappeared

all of the oxen that ever worked this field
their feet have long since lost contact with the ground
in an upright forever supporting sense
and their usefulness as a lineage
in an upright forever supporting sense
in large part, has similarly followed suit

[7]

today my hands do the calisthenics
to move the pitchfork
to stack the pile

over and over
the same thing
but anomalous every time

Monet at Giverny one last time:
“When you go out to paint try to forget what object you have before you - a tree, a house, a field or whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact colour and shape, until it emerges as your own naive impression of the scene before you.”

labor and the land
there is something to that
that something may be doing this over and over
that something may be thinking about the pile
or thinking about loss

letters forming words
typed here and then deleted
replaced with these letters forming words
indicating such

[OX BONE NEEDLE, HAY - performance / sculpture / photographic series]

2011