Sylvan Confessions: Entanglement & Steampunk Fantasies

And I still don’t know if I’m a falcon, a storm, or an unfinished song… — Rainer Maria Rilke

A city is a hive of buzzing metaphors… Such a place has no center, no nexus point where everything began, even if there’s a beating Heart. Unlike a seed, the city sprouts from dead stone, rises through geometry, rather than taking whimsical shape through sunlight and wind. Up becomes a verb, since ‘sprawling’ is an action best left to ivy and suburbs. Falcons perch on skyscrapers, as surely as treetops, while people pass like leaves hurried by the wind. Central Park dreams of the countryside… But the countryside never dreams of the city —

Got no time for spreadin’ roots The time has come to be gone… It’s time to ramble on… — Led Zeppelin: Ramble On

A seed sprouts and reshapes a forest… Some saplings are doomed to fail, but even the fallen live through space, saving a place for tomorrow’s Giant. While the city grows through binary-code, 1s and 0s, skyscrapers and sewers, ups and downs, so the forest twists space into shapes unnamed, no matter the direction. Every leaf is a page unto itself, holding stories told by the Sun… Concrete hardens, as soon as it falls, bearing the restless multitudes, until it breaks. Mountains rise — without regard to grids or airspace, leases or tenants — piercing clouds and minds, alike. In the city’s petrified embrace, subway trains mimic worms, wriggling through the streets’ bowels, screeching through predetermined hollows. Meanwhile, real worms dig real labyrinths…

I stumbled when I saw… — Shakespeare’s, King Lear

Roots cling to buried dreams… Wind whistles through avenues, before skimming the river, on its way to rustle Winter’s needles, reminding cold spruces to dance. Dead leaves rattle, still clinging to the oak, until they fall, dying another beautiful death, vibrant yellows, now quiet browns… Metaphors name the Named, anew… A copse of trees in Central Park is a wilderness, while the thick woods are home, depending on a person’s point in Space and Time, NYC/Tennessee, here and there. A dusting of snow was a blizzard, while a snowstorm is just another Sunday morning. City skylines are the forest’s steampunk fantasy… Everything is Entangled, from mycelium and roots, to thoughts and creation. Even the Hermit is directed into solitude by dizzying multitudes, like a conductor letting the orchestra play on, unregarded. Nothing is but what it’s not, since nothing exists in a vacuum, not even a star, beyond the known Universe. Emptiness hardens the mountain… A butterfly flaps her wings, but the next flower on the right told her to do so, while that golden blossom bobs through sea-breeze, on and on, into endless causes and effects. Shells wash ashore, delivered from the deep, sizzling in sea-foam, on their way to finding other names, in the crowded embrace of sand and snow. Wind carries on…

Hayden Moore